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Presented    by"  Y^OSS  \  CK^j^-^  V^AV^ 

BX  5937  .K57"R44T886 
Kirkus,  William,  1830-1907 
Religion 


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KELIGIO:^ 


A  EEYELATIOE"  A'ND  A  RULE 
OF  LIEE. 


BY 


REV.  WILLIAM  KIEKUS,  M.  A.,  LL.  B., 

UNIVERSITY  OF  LONDON: 

Hector  of  the  Church  of  S.  Michael  and 
All  Angels,  Baltimore,  Md. 


NEW  YORK : 

THOMAS    WHITTAKEK, 

2  AND  3  BIBLE  HOUSK, 

1886. 


COPYUTOHT,   1880, 

Uv  WILLIAM  KIIIKUS. 


Press  and  Bindery  of 
Isaac  Friedeiiuald,  Baltimore. 


TO 

THE  RIGHT  REVEREND  H.  C.  POTTER,  D.  D.,  LL.  D., 

Assistant  Bishop  of  new  York. 

Eight  Eeverend  and  Dear  Sir: 

I  am  sure  that  nobody  can  imagine  that,  in  these 
few  dedicatory  lines,  I  presume  or  desire  to  represent 
you  as  in  the  least  degree  responsible  for  any  part  of 
the  contents  of  this  little  volume — not  one  sentence  of 
which  has  been  in  any  way  submitted  to  you.  But  in 
venturing  to  offer  to  the  public  the  first  book  that,  in 
the  United  States,  I  have  published,  I  am  glad  to  avail 
myself  of  the  opportunity  of  expressing  not  only  my 
profound  reverence  for  your  high  office,  and  my  ever 
increasing  admiration  of  your  personal  administration 
of  it,  but  also  my  very  grateful  sense  of  a  long  series  of 
kindnesses  to  myself.  For,  during  more  than  twelve 
years,  I  have  received  from  you  the  most  valuable  assist- 
ance, in  all  sorts  of  ways.  When  I  was  slowly  feeling 
my  way  to  an  understanding  of  the  religious  life  and 
ecclesiastical  law  and  usages  of  my  adopted  country,  I 
could  have  had  no  greater  advantage  than  the  example 
and  precept  of  one  so  perfectly  well  informed  as  yourself, 
and  occupying  so  honourable  a  position  as  that  which 


you  then  so  honourably  filled.  No  education  could 
have  been  better  for  me  than  that  which  I  received 
Avhen  I  had  the  honour  to  be  associated  with  you,  as 
one  of  your  assistant  ministers,  in  Grace  Church,  New 
York.  With  the  sincerest  gratitude,  and  the  most 
earnest  hope  and  prayer  that  your  life  and  energy  may 
long  be  spared  for  the  incalculably  important  work  to 
which  you  have  been  called  by  Almighty  God,  I  remain, 
Right  Reverend  and  dear  Sir, 

Yours  most  faithfully  and  affectionately, 
William  Kirkus. 


CONTENTS 


Indi 


Revelation  a  Necessary  Condition  of  Religion, 

The  Revelation  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ, 

Revelation  in  the  Christian  Church,    . 

Revelation  as  an  Authoritative  Guidance  of 
viDUAL  Life, 

The  Bible  and  the  Gospel,     .... 

Speculation  and  Obedience,    .... 

Manly  Strength, 

Absolution, 

The  Judgment  of  God  in  the  Epidemic  of  Violence  and 
Fraud, 

The  Effects  of  an  Exclusive  or  Disproportionate 
Study  of  the  Physical  Sciences  on  Religious 
Belief, 

Self-Delusion, 

Supplementary  Notes  : 

I.  Revelation, 

II.  Remarks  on  Dr.  Maudsley's  "Natural  Causes 
and  Supernatural  Seemings," 


PAGE 
1 

21 

42 

63 

85 

115 

137 

1G5 

306 


241 

2G8 

297 
341 


PREFACE, 


I  offer  these  Sermons  to  the  public  with  the  most 
unfeigned  diffidence.  Two  of  them  have  been  pub- 
lished separately  before;  the  rest,  with  the  Supple- 
mentary Notes,  appear  noAv  for  the  first  time.  I  feel 
especially  afraid  that  in  the  Sermon  on  The  Effect  of  an 
Exclusive  or  Disproportmiate  Study  of  the  Physical 
Sciefices,  and  in  its  Supplementary  Note,  I  may  be 
supposed  to  have  gone  much  beyond  my  depth.  But 
I  think  it  will  be  observed,  by  any  candid  reader,  that 
I  have  not  presumed  to  deal  with  any  scientific  subject 
as  scientific.  At  the  same  time  we  are  continually 
meeting,  in  the  current  literature  and  conversation  of 
the  day,  with  all  sorts  of  speculations,  hypotheses, 
positive  assertions,  and  even  contemptuous  "sneers," 
which,  occurring  in  books  written  by  "  scientists,"  and 
expressed  in  quasi-scientific  language,  are  supposed  to 
possess  the  authority  which  rightly  belongs  to  their 
authors  as  students  and  teachers  of  2}hysical  science ; 
though  the  speculations  I  refer  to  really  belong  to  an 
altogether  different  region  of  thought  and  inquiry. 
Especially  is  this  true  of  modern  speculation  as  to  the 


viu  PREFACE. 

relation  of  the  mind  to  the  physical  sti'iictures  Avith 
Avhich  its  operations  seem  to  be  most  closely  connected. 

The  range  of  possible  knowledge  is  so  enormous  that 
it  is  necessary  to  divide  it  into  separate  portions,  and 
to  investigate  them  separately.  Thus  we  may  study 
separately  the  phenometia  of  mind  ;  or  separately  tJie 
2)henomena  of  the  nervous  system;  or  the  relations 
between  the  facts  ascertaitied  by  the  first  set  of  studies 
and  the  facts  ascertaitied  by  the  second  set  of  studies. 

The  phenomena  of  "  mind "  consist  of  sensations, 
thoughts,  processes  of  reasoning,  emotions,  will,  the 
perception  of  the  difference  between  right  and  wrong, 
the  imperative  of  conscience.  These  can  manifestly 
be  investigated  only  by  consciousness ;  by  the  inspec- 
tion of  what  we  really  do  or  feel  when  we  see,  or  hear, 
or  admire  a  poem,  or  decide  on  a  course  of  conduct,  or 
reproach  ourselves  for  a  crime.  All  these  phenomena 
are  manifestly  outside  the  sphere  of  physical  science. 
Again,  w^e  may  investigate  the  phenomena  of  the 
nervous  system  by  means  of  anatomy  and  physiology. 
We  discover  the  extreme  complexity  of  the  brain,  the 
spinal  cord,  the  sensory  and  motor  nerves,  and  the 
like.  We  observe,  for  instance,  that  the  eye  is  a 
structure  consisting  of  certain  lenses,  muscles,  nerves, 
so  and  so  distributed.  But  these  investigations  and 
discoveries,  separately  and  independently,  Avould  give 
us  no  notion  whatever  of  the  purposes  the  several 
structures  were  adapted  to  serve  in  relation  to  mind. 


PREFACE.  IX 

We  could  not  possibly  know,  by  mere  physical  research 
alone,  that  the  nerves  of  the  eye  had  any  more  to  do 
with  vision  than  the  nerves  of  the  foot.  But,  again, 
being  ourselves  spiritual  beings,  we  carry  with  us  into 
all  departments  of  investigation  spiritual  ideals,  and 
we  try  to  find  out  whether  there  is  any  ascertainable 
and  persistefit  relation  between  mental  and  material 
phenomena.  We  ascertain,  to  a  very  limited  extent, 
that  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  there  is  such  a 
relation.  For  instance,  we  observe  that  vision,  the 
sense  of  sight  (which  is  a  purely  mental  experience),  is 
parallel  or  co-ordinate  with  a  certain  stimulation  of  the 
nerves  of  the  eye.  But  even  here,  where  our  knowledge 
seems  most  complete,  it  is  traversed  by  the  fact  that 
we  see  in  our  sleep,  in  dreams,  quite  as  vividly  as  when 
we  are  awake ;  and  insane  persons  see  what  really  does 
not  exist,  and  also  hear  what  is  really  not  audible ;  so 
that,  in  all  these  cases,  the  parallelism  between  mental 
acts  and  physical  stimulation  is  altogether  destroyed. 
And,  apart  from  these  facts — dreams,  hallucinations, 
illusions,  delusions — nobody  has  ever  yet  discovered 
any  part  of  the  nervous  system  which  bears  the  same 
relation  to  love,  or  to  logical  faculty,  or  to  resentment, 
or  to  positiveness  and  self-assertion,  or  to  memory, 
which  the  eye  bears  to  vision  or  the  nerves  of  the  ear 
to  hearing.  The  utmost,  then,  that  we  have  positively 
and  certainly  ascertained  as  to  the  relation  of  mental 
operations  and  certain  parts  of  the  nervous  system,  is 


X  PREFACE. 

a  gerieral  j9ar•aZZeZ^s?7?,  very  often,  however,  deflected, 
stopped,  traversed — and  in  no  case  whatever  capable 
of  being  exjjlamecL  So  far  as  we  know  it  at  all,  we 
know  it  as  a  mere  fact.  We  cannot  find  out  Jwio  one 
set  of  nerves  is  parallel  (so  to  speak)  to  vision,  and 
another  to  hearing,  and  another  to  tasting. 

Hence,  while  the  study  of  the  material  structure  of 
our  bodies  yields  abundant  results,  which  can  be 
methodically  arranged,  and  which  form  the  object- 
matter  of  anatomy  and  physiology ;  and  while  the 
study  of  the  operations  of  the  mind  is  equally  fruitful, 
furnishing  the  object-matter  of  psychology,  and  meta- 
physics, and  ethics ;  the  study  of  the  positive  relations 
between  these  two  sets  of  phenomena  is  so  compara- 
tively barren  that  it  leads  to  no  definite  science  of  any 
kind.  The  parallelisms  really  demonstrated  are  too 
few ;  and  especially  they  are,  as  I  have  just  said,  wholly 
inexplicable.  Neither  the  physical  can  be  aflQrmed  to 
be  the  invariable  antecedent  of  the  mental  change,  nor 
the  mental  of  the  physical.  If  we  can  produce  pain  by 
irritating  a  nerve,  we  can  also  produce  the  complicated 
movements  involved  in  articulate  speech  by  a  deter- 
mination of  the  will.  When  two  phenomena  are  recip- 
rocally both  cause  and  effect,  their  relation  must  clearly 
depend  upon  some  indej^endent  and  higher  cause. 

But  the  inscrutable  mystery  of  the  relations  between 
the  physical  and  the  mental  seems  to  have  an  irresist- 
ible fascination  for  some  of  our  scientific  leaders.   The 


PREFACE.  Xi 

drift  and  purpose  of  their  observations  and  experiments 
seem  to  be  actually  to  annihilate  the  relation  by  identify- 
ing the  correlated  phenomena,  and  by  resolving  all  mental 
phenomena  into  physical.  The  effect  of  this  would  be 
— if  accomplished — to  abolish  both  ethics  and  theology; 
for  the  remorse  of  conscience  and  the  belief  in  God 
would  manifestly  be  as  inevitable,  both  in  quantity  and 
quality,  as  the  secretion  of  bile ;  and  what  we  now  call 
wickedness  or  superstition  would  correspond  precisely 
to  some  morbid  action  of  the  liver  or  kidneys.  It  may 
be  very  safely  affirmed  that  these  assumptions,  mis- 
chievous as  they  most  unquestionably  are,  will  never 
permanently  displace  the  irresistible  testimony  of  con- 
sciousness. Our  primary  facts  are  mental  experiences ; 
and  if  they  are,  or  could  be,  invalidated,  all  knowledge 
must  disappear.  But  it  may  fairly  be  questioned 
whether  the  attempt  to  reduce  phenomena  so  diflferent 
and  mutually  exclusive  as  molecular  motion  and  the 
emotion  of  love  or  the  remorse  of  conscience,  is  not 
from  the  beginning,  and  quite  apart  from  its  conse- 
quences, doomed,  on  purely  scientific  grounds,  to  hope- 
less failure.  The  following  passage  from  Mr.  J.  S. 
Mill's  Logic  (Book  III.,  Chapter  14,  §§1-2)  is  deserv- 
ing of  the  most  careful  study : 

Since  we  are  continually  discovering  that  uniformities, 
not  previously  known  to  be  other  than  ultimate,  are  deriva- 
tive, and  resolvable  into  more  general  laws  ;  since  (in  other 
words)  we  are  continually  discovering  the  explanation  of 
some  sequence  which  was  previously  known  only  as   a 


XU  PREFACE. 

fact,  it  becomes  an  interesting  question  whether  there  are 
any  necessary  limits  to  this  philosophical  operation,  or 
whether  it  may  proceed  until  all  the  uniform  sequences  in 
Nature  are  resolved  into  some  one  universal  law.  For  this 
seems,  at  first  sight,  to  be  the  ultimatum  towards  which  the 
progress  of  induction,  by  the  deductive  method  resting  on 
a  basis  of  observation  and  experiment,  is  tending.  .  .  . 

It  is  therefore  useful  to  remark  that  the  ultimate  laws 
of  Nature  cannot  possibly  be  less  numerous  than  the  dis- 
tinguishable sensations  or  other  feelings  of  our  nature — 
those,  I  mean,  which  are  distinguishable  fi"om  one  another 
in  quality,  and  not  merely  in  quantity  or  degree.  For 
example  :  since  there  is  a  phenomenon,  sui  generis,  called 
colour,  which  our  consciousness  testifies  to  be  not  a  par- 
ticular degree  of  some  other  phenomenon,  as  heat  or  odour 
or  motion,  but  intrinsically  unlike  all  others,  it  follows  that 
there  are  ultimate  laws  of  colour  ;  that,  though  the  facts  of 
colour  may  admit  of  explanation,  they  never  can  be 
explained  from  laws  of  heat  or  odour  alone,  or  of  motion 
alone,  but  that,  however  far  the  explanation  may  be  car- 
ried, there  will  always  remain  in  it  a  law  of  colour.  I  do 
not  mean  that  it  might  not  possibly  be  shown  that  some 
other  phenomenon,  some  chemical  or  mechanical  action, 
for  example,  invariably  precedes,  and  is  the  cause  of,  every 
phenomenon  of  colour.  But  though  this,  if  proved,  would 
be  an  important  extension  of  our  knowledge  of  Nature,  it 
would  not  explain  how  or  why  a  motion,  or  a  chemical 
action,  can  produce  a  sensation  of  colour ;  and  however 
diligent  might  be  our  scrutiny  of  the  phenomena,  what- 
ever number  of  hidden  links  we  might  detect  in  the  chain 
of  causation  terminating  in  the  colour,  the  last  link  would 
still  be  a  law  of  colour,  not  a  law  of  motion,  nor  of  any 
other  phenomenon  whatever. 

Nobody  denies  the  close  general  relation,  in  our 
present  state  of  existence,  between  the  body  and  the 
mind ;  nor  that  some  special  relations  between  some 


PREFACE. 


parts  of  the  body  and  some  operations  of  the  mind 
haye  been  sufficiently  proved.    But  if  a  far  larger 
number  of  these  special  relations  should  be  hereafter 
discovered,  that  would  not  alter  the  fact  that,  at  the 
end  of  ever  so  long  a  chain  of  antecedents,  we  come  at 
last  to  mental  phenomena  which  are  sui  generis;  and 
that  filial  affection,  for  instance,  is  intrinsically  differ- 
ent from  molecular  motion,  and,  though  it  may  be 
invariably  preceded,   cannot   be    explained,  by  that 
motion.     3find  has  conducted  the  practical  busniess 
.  of  the  world  from  the  beginning;  a  part  of  its  all  but 
infinite  products  is  the  whole  extant  literature  of  the 
human  race;  and  we  need  be  under  no  serious  alarm 
that  mankind  will  cease  to  reason,  and  determine,  and 
love,  and  worship,  because  anatomists  and  physiologists 
have  arrived  at  a  completer  knowledge  of  the  structure 
and  functions  of  the  brain  and  nervous  system. 

But  it  is  in  this  obscure  and  comparatively  barren 
region  of  the  study  of  relations  between  the  physical 
and  the  mental,  that  some  of  our  modern  scientists 
assume  a  degree  of  real  knowledge  enormously  out  of 
proportion  to  their  scientific  verifications.  Thus  Dr. 
Maudsley  affirms,  in  a  passage  I  have  quoted  elsewhere : 
«It  is  not  anyhow,  as  some  thoughtlessly  conclude, 
imagination  which  starts  the  organic  process^it  is  the 
organic  process  which  is  the  condition  of  [=  starts?] 
imacdnation."  But  this  assertion  can  be  justified  only 
if  Dr.  Maudsley  can  prove  that  there  is  a  definite 


XIV  PREFACE. 

"organic  process"  invariably  related  to  imagination. 
But  this  he  cannot  prove.  On  the  contrary,  self- 
contradictory  though  he  may  be,  he  describes  imagina- 
tion, in  this  very  passage,  as  being  a  sort  of  living 
thing,  moving  along  definite  tracks,  bursting  away  from 
them,  and  forming  new  tracks  by  means  of  "  nerve-cells 
lying  around  in  all  states  of  incomplete  development." 
The  whole  passage  is  as  purely  anthropomorphic, 
though  by  no  means  as  beautiful,  as  the  Homeric 
Poems.  If  I  have  misunderstood  Dr.  Maudsley,  I 
think  the  reason  is  that  he  has  departed  entirely  in  his 
recent  book  from  scientific  methods,  and  has  so  often 
contradicted  himself  that  there  really  is  no  definite 
meaning  in  a  great  part  of  what  he  has  written. 

Since  writing  Snp'plementary  Note  II.,  at  the  end  of 
this  volume,  and  the  Sermon  to  which  it  refers,  I  have 
read  the  notice  of  Dr.  Maudsley's  book  in  the  Saturday 
Revieio.  Whatever  may  be  thought  of  my  own  criti- 
cism, it  will  be  generally  admitted  that  the  Avriters  in 
the  Saturday  Revieio  have  a  very  well-deserved  repu- 
tation for  intellectual  and  critical  acuteness.  The 
following  is  an  extract  from  the  notice  of  Dr.  Maudsley's 
book : 

And  now  to  examine  the  book  itself.  It  would  of  course 
be  an  ignoratio  elencM  to  meet  Dr.  Maudsley  by  an  a  pnori 
proof  of  the  existence  of  God.  He  avoids,  as  far  as  possible, 
the  use  of  that  name  and  does  not  want  d  priori  proofs  ;  he 
distrusts  and  will  have  nothing  of  them.  And  we  shall  be 
first  to  confess  that  we  cannot  give  him  an  a  posteriori 


PREFACE.  XV 

proof  that  he  would  be  at  all  likely  to  admit.  Indeed,  the 
greatest  fault  that  we  should  find  with  his  book  is  that  he 
himself  has  fallen  into  the  great  and  universal  error  which 
may  be  best  put  in  a  syllogism  : 

Whatsoever  is  not  natural  13  not  true ; 
The  supernatural  is  not  natural ; 

Therefore  the  supernatural  is  not  true. 

Now,  as  it  is  the  claim,  made  totidem  Uteris,  of  the  super- 
natural that  it  is  not  natural,  we  own  that  it  might  be  a 
little  surprising  to  find  persons  of  Dr.  Maudsley's  intelli- 
gence triumphantly  reiterating  an  argument  with  a  major 
that  requires  to  be  proved  and  a  minor  which  grants  the 
adversary's  position.  But  we  are  so  accustomed  to  this 
that  we  really  do  not  care  to  affect  surprise  on  this  point 
of  the  question.     They  all  do  it. 

The  only  ground  on  which  both  parties  can  meet  in  such 
a  matter  is  clearly  an  examination  of  the  arguments  and 
method  of  the  disputant  for  the  time  being.  If  Anselm 
and  Descartes  have  not  convinced  Dr.  Maudsley  on  the 
high  metaphysical  ground,  we  are  not  at  all  likely  to  do 
so.  We  can  at  least  take  Dr.  Maudsley 's  own  arguments 
and  method  to  pieces  with  instruments  which  Dr.  Maudsley 
himself  must  necessarily  allow.  With  numerous  minor 
points  we  have  no  space  to  deal.  It  is  indeed  strange  that 
any  one  should  produce  against  omens  the  argument  that 
''the  same  event  which  was  an  omen  of  ill  luck  in  one 
nation  was  an  omen  of  good  luck  in  another  nation,"  for- 
getting that  on  the  omen  theory  there  is  no  reason  why 
this  should  not  be  so.  It  is  stranger  that  at  this  time  of 
day  an  aporia  should  be  based  on  the  "one"  or  "two" 
angels  at  the  Sepulchre.  But  we  shall  take  wider  ground  ; 
and,  in  the  first  place,  we  shall  confess  our  extreme  sur- 
prise at  finding  that  Dr.  Maudsley,  who  is  constantly 
pitchforking  the  supernatural  out  of  his  doors  somehow  or 
other,  is  perpetually  building  ladders  for  her  to  come  back 
by  the  window.  He  condemns  with  well-justified  and 
conclusive  scorn  ''the  explanation  of  a  concrete  fact  in 
what  is  no  more  than  the  abstract  statement  of  the  same 


XVI  PREFACE. 

fact,"  and  certainly  there  is  no  more  hopeless  and  per- 
sistent fallacy.  He  is  equally  scornful  of  "mere  general 
terms  and  abstractions,"  and  certainly  they  are  most 
deceptive.  Yet,  when  we  come  to  Dr.  Maudsley's  own 
explanations  of  phenomena,  we  are  astonished  to  find  that 
he  is  always  paying  himself  with  terms.  Tlie  supernatural 
is  to  him  an  abomination,  yet  his  "Nature  "  is  to  us  one 
of  the  most  supernatural  things  that  we  ever  met,  and  one 
of  the  most  abstract.  He  is  justly  contemptuous  of  those 
who  "  explain  the  sleep-producing  effects  of  opium  by  the 
soporific  virtues  of  that  drug."  Yet  we  come  across  this 
remarkable  sentence  in  him  :  "  Imagination,  which  is  a 
prolific  faculty  or  function,  always  eager  and  pleased  to 
exercise  itself."  A  prolific  faculty  or  function!  always 
eager  and  pleased  to  exex'cise  itself  !  Surely  Imagination 
is  here  a  general  term,  an  abstraction,  and,  what  is  more, 
a  personalized  abstraction  of  the  most  surprising  character. 
Where  this  Imagination  came  from,  who  made  her,  what 
becomes  of  her,  who  told  him  anything  about  her, 
Dr.  Maudsley  can  tell  us  no  more  than  we  can  tell  him 
about  the  Archangel  Gabriel .  Yet  he  speaks  of  her  exactly 
as  if  she  were  the  cat  on  his  hearth.  We  may  not,  it 
seems,  believe  in  the  supernatural.  But  here  is  an  abstract 
Imagination,  which  is  not  yours  or  mine,  but  the  human 
race's,  and  which  has  the  purely  personal  attributes  of 
prolificness,  eagerness,  and  pleasure.  Again  :  "As  long  as 
the  nisus  of  evolution  lasts  in  Nature  and  works  through 
man,  we  may  continue  to  expect."  May  we?  What,  in 
Heaven's  name — or,  if  that  be  tabooed,  what,  in  the  name 
of  Aristotle — is  a  nisus  ?  Why  does  "  Nature  "  struggle  ? 
Natura  nititur,  answers  Dr.  Maudsley  apparently,  quia  est 
in  ilia  virtus  nititiva  (or,  if  any  one  prefers  the  form, 
nixiva)  \  and  after  this  he  sneers  at  the  vertu  soporifiqiie  ! 
Here  is  another  striking  passage  : 

It  Is  imagination  which  attracts  the  lover  to  his  mistress,  by  gliding 
her  modest  charms  with  the  glow  o£  the  liglit  that  never  shone  on  sea 
or  laud,  and  Ijeguiles  him  into  marriage,  as  into  the  sure  promise  of  an 
earthly  paradise ;  and  he,  notwithstanding  that  he  is  soon  mightily 
disenchanted  by  experience,  finds,  in  compensation,  sober  domestic 


PREFACE.  xvii 

joys  and  does  the  proci'oaut  and  prosaic  work  of  the  world.  It  seduces 
the  politician  by  alluring  thoughts  of  fame  and  glory  and  of  heneflts  to 
his  country,  and  inspires  him  to  go  througli  his  arduous  and  often 
ignoble  labours ;  what  matters  it  that  he  discovers  In  no  long  time,  if  he 
is  not  a  simple  innocent,  that  tame  Is  sounding  vanity  and  glory  an 
idle  phantasm,  since  he  has  meanwhile  done  zealous  work  which  he 
would  never  have  done  had  he  been  disillusioned  at  the  outset  ?  It 
furnishes  a  plentiful  supply  of  the  preliminary  hypotheses  necessary 
in  all  branches  of  scientific  research — those  guesses  at  truth  which 
great  discoverers,  like  Kepler  and  Faraday,  make  in  abundance  in 
order  to  begin  to  look  definitely  for  it,  the  erroneous  ones,  thrown  aside 
as  unfit  after  trial,  being  many  times  more  numerous  than  those  which 
verification  proves  to  be  well  founded.  It  inspires  the  idealizations 
of  the  poet,  by  means  of  which  he  throws  glamours  of  joy  and  beauty 
over  the  hard  and  dreary  realities,  and  yields  a  glowing  warmth  to  the 
aspirations  of  the  heart  which  is  denied  to  the  cold  light  of  reason. 
Lastly,  attaining  its  most  ambitious  flights,  it  creates  and  peoples  those 
unseen  worlds  to  the  joys  of  which  so  many  nations  in  different  times 
and  places  have  looked  forward  for  recompense  and  rest  after  the 
sufferings  and  labours  of  this  life. 

This  is  extremely  eloquent ;  but  again  we  ask,  What  is 
this  description  of  Imagination  but  a  statement  in  ab- 
stract terms  of  the  fact  that  there  are  peculiarities  of 
the  human  organization  which  Dr.  Maudsley  cannot  in  the 
least  explain,  and  which  he  will  not  attribute  to  "the  act 
of  God  "  ?  We  have  as  much  objection  as  any  one  can 
have  to  bandying  that  name  in  argument ;  but  really,  if 
we  have  it  translated  into  Nature  and  Nisus  and  Faculty 
and  Function,  and  what  not  (Dr.  Maudsley  indulges  in 
the  astonishing  remark  that  "the  habit-formed  structure 
will  always  feel  the  joy  of  function,"  which,  if  we  were 
Comtists,  we  should  take  as  one  of  the  most  delightfully 
crude  expressions  of  the  metaphysical  era  of  thought) ;  if, 
we  say,  we  are  asked  to  believe  that  the  monosyllable  is 
not  to  be  used  because  it  can  be  translated  into  all  sorts  of 
dissyllables  and  trisyllables  and  polysyllables,  we  decline. 
Hypotheses  non  sunt  multiplicandce  prceter  necessitatem 
any  more  than  entities  ;  and  for  our  part  we  prefer  the 
single  and  sufficient  hypothesis  of  God. 

We  cannot  follow  up  this  argument,  which  is  of  wide, 
perhaps  of  universal,  application.  The  universe  of  "  natu- 
ral "  abstractions,  each  working  piropter  virtutem^  and  not 


xviii  PREFACE. 

caused  by  anything,  which  Dr.  Maudsley  prefers  to  the 
supernatural,  or,  speaking  plainly,  to  belief  in  God,  strikes 
us  as  a  universe  rather  unreasonable  to  propose  and  sin- 
gularly unreasonable  to  accept.  But  we  cannot  deal  with 
all  its  phases  as  examined  by  Dr.  Maudsley.  We  must 
leave  others  to  decide  whether  good  and  bad  luck  are  such 
absurd  suppositions  as  Dr.  Maudsley  will  have  them  to  be 
in  one  i^lace,  and  whether  what  he  himself  lays  down  in 
another,  the  "unconscious  ingenuity  with  which  certain 
natures,  again  incarnating  the  discordant  doings  and  feel- 
ings of  their  forefathers,  succeed  in  doing  with  the  most  apt 
inaptness  the  wrong  thing  at  the  wrong  time,"  is  not 
something  much  more  absurd.  Our  author  remarks  some- 
where that  "  the  devout  Christian  will  resent  the  insulting 
impiety  of  a  natural  explanation."  We  do  not  know  ;  we 
are  not  at  any  rate  un-Christian  enough  to  arrogate  to  our- 
selves the  title  of  devout  Christians.  But,  if  we  are  asked 
to  believe  in  such  a  "■  Nature  "  as  Dr.  Maudsley's,  we  shall 
certainly  resent  the  insulting  explanation.  The  super- 
natural, at  any  rate,  presents  itself  frankly  as  supernatural. 
It  says,  alike  to  intelligent  vinbelievers  like  Dr.  Maudsley, 
to  believers  who  may  or  may  not  be  intelligent,  and  to  the 
unquestionably  unintelligent  persons  of  the  psychical- 
research  kind,  "I  am  not  natural,  and  you  can  neither 
prove  nor  disprove  me  by  natural  means."  Nature  (Dr. 
Maudsley's  Nature)  says,  "You  will  please  to  believe  in  a 
nisus  and  a  function  and  a  faculty,  and  all  the  rest  of  it, 
which  are,  indeed,  absolutely  inexiDlicable,  but  which  are 
natural,  quite  natural,  you  know."  "What  right,"  says 
Dr.  Maudsley,  "  have  we  to  believe  Nature  under  any  sort 
of  obligation  to  do  her  work  by  means  of  complete  minds 
only  ?  She  may  find  an  incomplete  mind  a  more  suitable 
instrument  for  a  particular  purpose."  What  attribute  has 
the  wildest  supernaturalist  ever  given  to  the  supernatural, 
or  any  synonym  of  it,  which  transcends  the  non-natural 
character  of  this  "  Nature  "  of  Dr.  Maudsley's  i* 

Once,  indeed,  a  glimmer,  though  only  a  glimmer,  of 
the  fatal  paralogism  which  pervades  his  whole  book 
strikes  the  author  : 


PREFACE.  Xix 

To  the  notorious  objection  that  a  direct  communication  from  the 
Deity  would  be  a  violation  of  the  laws  of  Nature,  it  Is  no  real  answer 
that  the  divine  locution  might  take  place  in  conformity  with  a  higher 
law  than  the  known  laws  of  Nature,  and  be  a  temporary  discontinuity, 
not  really  a  violation  of  them — a  special  supersession  of  their  function 
for  the  occasion ;  because  a  supernatural  event  occurring  in  Nature,  la 
direct  opposition  to  Its  known  order,  would  be  the  temporary  abolition 
of  the  linown  properties  of  things,  and  the  utter  confounding  of  human 
experience— of  that  same  experience  which  alone  is  our  authority  for 
believing  human  testimony;  not  the  mere  Interruption  or  suspension 
of  known  law,  but  the  negation  of  all  law  based  upon  the  uniformity 
of  experience  within  Its  range.  The  very  basis  of  natural  knowledge 
would  be  swept  away  in  that  case ;  belief  could  never  have  the 
certainty  that  it  was  in  conformity  with  experience,  nor  an  instant's 
confidence  as  to  what  would  come  to  pass  next ;  it  would  be  no  matter 
thenceforth  how  many  miracles,  big  or  little,  occurred,  nor  how  often 
or  how  seldom  they  occurred :  tlie  universe  would  practically  be  a 
chaos,  not  a  cosmos.  If  the  law  of  gravitation  can  be  suspended  even 
for  a  second  of  time  without  the  universe  going  to  wreck,  then  It  is 
clear  that  there  is  no  law  of  gravitation  at  all. 

We  need  only  ask  any  one  to  read  this,  to  see  the  strange 
fallacy  which  it  indicates,  and  to  which  Dr.  Maudsley,  like 
all  impugners  of  the  supernatural,  placidly  submits.  Un- 
doubtedly an  interference  with  the  laws  of  Nature  would 
be  a  violation  of  them,  if  it  were  done  by  a  natural 
authority.  But  the  whole  contention  of  supernaturalists, 
the  whole  theory  of  religion,  the  whole  definition  of  God, 
to  put  plain  things  in  plain  words,  is  that  the  authority  is 
not  natural,  that  it  is  not  limited  by  any  natural  limita- 
tions of  power,  and  that  it  can  not  only  make  what  is  not 
natural  happen,  but  can  prevent  it  from  having  any  such 
effects  as  Dr.  Maudsley  describes.  If  he  or  any  one  else 
chooses  to  say  that  he  does  not  believe  in  omnipotence,  he 
is  logically  entitled  to  do  so.  But  to  object  to  omnipotence 
that  if  it  existed  it  would  be  omnipotent,  appears  to  humble 
logicians  a  very  absurd  and  a  very  inexcusable  petitio 
principii.  To  put  the  whole  thing  shortly,  Dr.  Maudsley, 
like  every  other  reasoner  of  his  class  whose  reasonings  we 
have  ever  read,  bases  his  arguments  on  one  simple  objec- 
tion, "  You  ascribe  to  God  things  that  are  not  and  could 
not  be  true  of  man." 

We  have  no  care  to  deny  it. 


XX  PREFACE. 

If  it  should  be  objected  that  my  criticism  of  Dr. 
Maudsley  is  too  contemptuous,  I  can  only  reply  that  I 
do  not  see  how  else  to  deal  with  a  most  pretentious 
writer  whose  sentences  are  in  scores  of  instances,  which 
I  have  marked,  mere  unintelligible  jargon ;  and,  above 
all,  whose  very  object  it  is,  not  calmly  to  discuss  the 
doctrines  of  religion  with  a  due  regard  to  their 
enormous  practical  importance— whether  true  or  false 
— but  to  hold  all  religion  up  to  the  contempt  of  his 
readers,  as  a  mass  of  puerile  absurdities  which  are 
not  deserving  of  serious  argument. 

As  to  the  rest  of  the  Sermons  in  this  volume,  they 
must  speak  for  themselves.  Nobody  can  be  better 
aware  of  their  deficiencies  than  I  am  myself.  Never- 
theless, it  seems  to  me  that  we  are  in  a  condition  of 
controversy  and  doubt  and  unbelief,  in  which  each 
sliould  do  his  best,  however  poor  that  may  be,  to  re- 
assure the  timid,  and  at  least  to  testify  to  his  own 
belief. 

Baltimore,  September,  1880. 


EEVELATION  A  NECESSARY  CONDITION  OF 
RELIGION.* 

What  advantage  then  hath  the  Jew  ?  or  ichat  is  the  profit  of 
circumcision  ?  Much  every  way  :  first  of  alt,  that  they  xvere 
intrusted  with  the  oracles  of  God. — Romans  iii.  1-2. 

I  propose  during  the  Sunday  mornings  of  Advent  to 
direct  your  attention  to  a  subject  of  the  most  serious 
importance,  which  it  is  the  intellectual  fashion  of  our 
time  habitually  to  ignore  or  contemptuously  to  set 
aside.  I  propose  to  nrge  upon  your  attention,  and,  so  far 
as  I  may  be  able,  to  demonstrate  to  you,  the  fact  that  ^ 
Almighty  God  has  been  graciously  pleased  to  impart 
to  men — m  many  parts  and  in  many  ways — a  con- 
tinuous and  harmonious  series  of  Revelations :  partly 
concerning  Himself  and  His  will ;  partly  concerning 
our  OAvn  nature  and  our  relations  to  Himself  and 
to  each  other;  partly  concerning  our  spiritual  needs, 
our  sins  and  frailties,  and  the  provision  He  has  made 
for  our  redemption  and  restoration  to  perfect  com- 
munion with  Himself;  partly  concerning  events  which 
were  to  happen  in  a  far  distant  future;  partly  as  to 
the  spiritual  significance  of  the  ordinary  processes  of 
Nature  and  the  course  of  history.  And  by  revelation 
I  do  not  mean  a  vague  divine  superintendence  of  our 
own  intellectual  operations;  the  gift  to  us  of  reason; 
the  steady  evolution  of  logic  and  the  laws  of  thought ; 

*  This  and  tlie  next  three  Sermons  were  preached  on  the 
Stmday  mornings  of  Advent,  1885. 


y 


2  KEVELATION   NECESSARY  TO  KELIGION, 

the  faculty  of  observing  Iticts  and  phenomena  and 
drawing  legitimate  inferences  from  them.  I  mean  by 
revelation  a  direct  divine  communication  to  human 
spirits  by  which  they  were  put  in  possession  of  truths 
which  they  could  not  otherwise  have  known ;  or  received 
commandments  which  they  were  bound  to  obey,  but 
which  they  could  not  otherwise  have  discovered.  And 
I  wish  to  help  you  to  realize  that  these  revelations  are 
I  a  necessary  condition  of  religion  :  that  if  Ave  deny  them 
or  set  them  aside,  we  shall  have,  in  place  of  a  genuine 
religion,  a  mere  series  of  personal  feelings  with  no 
objective  foundation,  which  will  come  and  go  as  our 
circumstances  change  or  with  the  changing  moods  of 
our  minds. 

The  season  of  Advent  seems  remarkably  suitable  for 
such  reflections  as  these,  because  it  is  the  very  object 
of  that  Holy  Season — coming  at  the  very  beginning  of 
the  Christian  Year — to  remind  us  that  the  whole 
course  of  our  Christian  life,  whether  as  individuals  or 
as  a  Church,  assumes  that  God  has  C07ne  to  us :  has 
come  not  vaguely  and  generally,  but  definitely  and 
specially ;  not  indirectly  by  the  ordinary  operation  of 
ovr  own  spirits,  but  directly  by  the  operation  of  His 
Spirit  upon  ours.  He  comes  to  us,  indeed,  in  ways 
innumerable,  many  of  which  we  call  natural — not 
because  they  do  not  imply  a  direct  communion  between 
Him  and  us,  but  because  they  are  universal,  common 
to  all  mankind.  Thus  He  comes  to  us  primarily  in 
Conscience,  which  testifies  to  us  irresistibly  not  only 
the  existence  of  God,  but  also  His  righteousness.  His 
supreme  and  absolute  authority,  and  His  certain 
judgment  of  us.  And  the  testimony  of  conscience  to 
God  is,  to  say  the  very  least,  as  perfect  and  irresistible 


KEVELATION  NECESSARY  TO  RELIGION.  6 

as  the  testimony  of  our  senses  to  the  reality  of  an 
external  world.  For  our  sensations  are  not  themselves 
the  external  world :  they  are  states  of  our  own  minds, 
and  they  compel  us  to  believe  in  something  external 
which  produces  them,  chiefly  because  ^//e^  are  not  under 
our  oion  control.  Thus,  for  instance,  it  must  one  day 
have  happened  that,  for  the  first  time,  we  observed  a 
piece  of  white  paper  lying  on  a  table :  we  noticed  its 
form,  colour,  position,  smootlmess,  hardness,  weight; 
we  experienced,  in  fact,  a  definite  group  or  set  of  sen- 
sations. We  had  never  seen  a  piece  of  white  paper 
before,  and  inasmuch  as  one  single  group  of  sensations 
not  associated  as  yet  by  contiguity  or  resemblance  with 
any  other  group  would  awaken  neither  memory  nor 
anticipation,  we  should  have  had  no  reason  for  expect- 
ing to  see  a  piece  of  white  paper  again.  But  supposing 
by  sheer  accident  Ave  had  passed  fifty  or  sixty  times 
near  the  same  table,  observed  the  same  piece  of  white 
paper,  and  experienced  therefrom  the  same  definite 
group  or  set  of  sensations,  how  should  we  have  explained 
this  recurrence  of  feeling?  Would  the  piece  of  white 
paper  be  in  the  least  degree  more  real  after  we  had 
seen  it  fifty  times  than  it  was  when  we  saw  it  for  the 
first  time?  If  the  belief  in  an  external  world  be 
intuitive,  we  should  have  referred  our  sensations  at 
once  to  the  piece  of  white  paper  as  an  external  object; 
but  if  it  be  acquired,  the  same  result  would  have  been 
arrived  at,  though  by  a  slower  process.  We  should 
have  perceived  that,  though  we  might  move  away  from 
the  piece  of  paper,  yet  if  we  chose  to  be  near  it  we 
were  no  longer  masters  of  our  own  sensations.  We 
should  have  found  out  that  we  were  unable  steadily  to 
look  at  a  thin,  light,  square  piece  of  white  paper,  and 


4  REVELATION    NECESSAKY  TO  RELIGION. 

then  experience  the  sensations  of  heaviness,  and  round- 
ness, and  thickness,  and  blneness.  We  should  have 
come  to  feel :  '  This  piece  of  paper  is  as  real  as  I 
am,  and  is  external  to  myself.  I  do  not  take  it  away 
with  me  ;  it  is  not  a  group  of  sensations  I  can  produce 
at  will,  whether  the  paper  be  present  or  absent; 
moreover,  when  it  is  present,  it  can  compel  me  to 
experience  a  certain  group  of  sensations,  however  much 
I  may  try  not  to  experience  them  together.  It  is, 
therefore,  not  myself,  it  is  not  merely  a  group  of  my 
sensations,  but  a  real,  external  object  which  is  a  cause 
of  my  sensations.' 

In  a  precisely  similar  manner  does  conscience  reveal 
God  to  us ;  force  upon  us  the  knowledge  that  He  is, 
that  He  is  righteous,  and  that  He  xvill  judge  us  ;  and 
Ave  cannot  escape  this  knowledge,  nor  by  any  effort  or 
ingenuity  divest  ourselves  of  it.  Conscience — I  am 
quoting  Cardinal  Newman* — 

Conscience  always  involves  the  recognition  of  a  living  object, 
towards  which  it  is  directed.  Inanimate  things  cannot  stir  our 
affections :  these  are  correlative  with  persons.  If,  as  is  the  case, 
we  feel  responsibility,  are  ashamed,  are  frightened,  at  trans- 
gressing the  voice  of  conscience,  this  implies  that  there  is  one  to 
whom  we  are  responsible,  before  whom  we  are  ashamed,  whose 
claims  upon  us  we  fear.  If,  on  doing  wrong,  we  feel  the  sirae 
tearful,  broken-hearted  sorrow  which  overwhelms  us  on  hurting 
a  mother  ;  if,  on  doing  right,  we  enjoy  the  same  sunny  serenity 
of  mind,  the  same  soothing,  satisfactory  delight  which  follows 
on  our  receiving  praise  from  a  father,  we  certainly  have  within 
us  the  image  of  some  person  to  whom  ova*  love  and  veneration 
look,  in  whose  smile  we  find  our  happiness,  for  whom  we  yearn, 
towards  whom  we  direct  our  pleadings,  in  wliose  anger  we  arc 
troubled  and  waste  away.     These  feelings  in  us  are  such  as 

*Gramni(ir  of  Assent,  ])p.  109-110.  (Fifth  Edition,  ]jO!idon, 
1881.) 


REVELATION  NECESSARY  TO  RELIGION.  5 

require  for  their  exciting  cause  an  intelligent  being  ;  we  are  not 
affectionate  towards  a  stone,  nor  do  we  feel  shame  before  a 
horse  or  a  dog  ;  we  have  no  remorse  or  compunction  on  breaking 
mere  human  law  ;  yet,  so  it  is,  conscience  excites  all  these  painful 
emotions,  confusion,  foreboding,  self-condemnation  ;  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  it  sheds  upon  us  a  deep  peace,  a  sense  of  security, 
a  resignation,  and  a  hope,  which  there  is  no  sensible,  no  earthly 
object  to  elicit.  "  The  wicked  flees  when  no  one  pursueth"; 
then  why  does  he  flee  ?  Whence  his  terror  ?  Who  is  it  that  lie 
sees  in  solitude,  in  darkness,  in  the  hidden  chambers  of  his 
heart  ?  If  the  cause  of  these  emotions  does  not  belong  to  this 
visible  world,  the  object  to  which  his  perception  is  directed 
must  be  supernatural  and  divine  ;  and  thus  the  phenomena  of 
conscience,  as  a  dictate,  avail  to  impress  tlie  imagination  with 
the  picture  of  a  Supreme  Governor,  a  Judge,  holy,  just,  power- 
ful, all-seeing,  retributive,  and  is  the  creative  principle  of 
religion,  as  the  moral  sense  is  the  principle  of  ethics. 

Thus  God  reveals  Himself  to  ns  primarily,  absolutely 
aud  irresistibly  in  conscience ;  and,  as  I  said  a  moment 
ago,  of  the  knowledge  thus  forced  upon  us  we  can  by 
no  ingenuity  or  strenuous  effort  of  will  for  a  single 
moment  divest  ourselves.  Many  people,  indeed,  think 
that  they  have  achieved  this  impossible  feat ;  but  it  is 
manifest  to  all  but  themselves  that  they  have  accom- 
plished no  more  than  to  change  their  mode  of  express- 
ing the  truth  which  they  still  assume  at  every  step  of 
their  reasoning,  and  in  every  judgment  they  form  on 
their  own  conduct  or  the  conduct  of  others.  But,  in 
addition  to  this  primary  and  universal  revelation  of 
Himself  in  conscience,  God  has  so  inwoven  Himself  in 
the  regularities  and  adaptations  of  Nature,  in  the 
structure  of  human  society,  and  in  the  course  of 
history,  that  the  primary  revelation  receives  incessant 
and  innumerable  verifications  at  every  turn.  Thus 
the  stability  of  natural  "  law,"  the  quiet  routine  of  life, 


b  REVELATION  NECESSARY  TO  RELIGION. 

the  tender  ministrations  of  love,  the  recuperative  and 
restorative  processes  which  hasten  to  make  good  the 
waste  and  heal  the  diseases  to  which  we  may  be  ex- 
posed, the  steady  progress  of  nations  "  without  a 
history,"  or  of  individuals  "  whose  biography  would 
not  be  worth  writing,"  assure  us  that  the  God  luliom 
we  hioio  already  is  immanent  among  us,  never  ceasing 
to  protect  and  bless  us,  keeping  in  constant  motion  the 
vast  machinery  of  life,  and  enabling  us  to  move  safely 
among  its  complicated  and  incalculable  forces.  And, 
on  the  other  hand,  when  either  the  "  draught  of  fishes  " 
well-nigh  breaks  our  nets,  or  when  we  are  overtaken 
in  a  career  of  vice  and  folly  and  brought  to  cureless 
ruin;  or,  again,  in  the  revolutions  of  empires,  in  a 
lieign  of  Terror,  in  the  triumphs  of  a  robust  and  patri- 
otic people,  in  the  slow  decay  and  final  disappearance 
of  nations  enervated  by  prosperity  and  demoralized  by 
luxury — we  cannot  help  perceiving  that  the  God  wJio^n 
we  hnoio  already  is  no  mere  force,  or  law,  or  working 
hypotiiesis  to  account  for  the  first  beginning  of  the 
universe,  but  a  Mighty  Being  who  acts  or  interposes 
by  virtue  of  that  mysterious  power  of  which  we  find 
the  image  in  the  human  will. 

But  coming  into  the  most  intimate  contact  with  God 
in  the  solemn  sanctuary  of  Conscience,  knowing 
irresistibly  His  righteousness  and  His  absolute  rule 
over  ourselves,  anticipating  with  unalterable  certitude 
His  final  judgment,  finding  innumerable  and  incessant 
verifications  of  our  knowledge  in  every  corner  of  Nature 
and  experience,  and  in  those  countless  adaptations 
which  make  Nature  and  life  a  whole — it  is  impossible 
that  we  should  rest  satisfied  with  so  much  knowledge 
and  so  little.     Without  further  revelation  our  very 


REVELATION  NECESSARY  TO  RELIGION.  7 

wisdom  would  be  a  kind  of  foolishness,  our  liglit  but 
little  better  than  "  darkness  visible,"  our  sense  of  duty 
and  anticipation  of  judgment  a  dread  despair.  Knowing 
that  God  is,  that  He  is  righteous,  that  He  will  judge 
us,  we  cannot  resist  the  belief,  we  cannot  quench  the 
hope,  that  he  will  give  us  some  clearer — nay,  some 
practically  unmistakable — guidance  in  the  conduct  of 
our  lives  towards  Himself.  Nothing  can  possibly  seem 
to  us  more  natural,  more  probable,  more  all  but 
certain — knowing  so  much  of  God  already  as  we  do — 
than  that  he  should  reveal  His  will  and  the  truths 
necessary  for  our  spiritual  perfection,  to  chosen 
messengers  ;  that  He  should  provide  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  these  revelations  in  trustworthy  records,  or 
social  and  ecclesiastical  institutions ;  that  sooner  or 
later  He  should  give  us  a  perfect  revelation  in  One 
who  should  be  able  fully  to  declare  to  us  both  Him  and 
ourselves;  that  He  should  store  up  for  us  this  perfect 
revelation  in  permanent  institutions,  and  propagate  it 
to  all  mankind  by  the  ministry  of  the  Church. 
Beginning  with  the  universal  knowledge  of  God  in 
conscience,  these  revelations,  and  the  preservation  and 
proclamation  of  them,  are  not  only  not  incredible  :  it 
is  utterly  incredible  that  we  should  be  left  without 
them. 

For  religion,  being  the  bond  between  God  and  our- 
selves, the  recognition  of  our  dependence  upon  Him 
and  His  supreme  authority  over  us,  must  needs  rest 
upon  some  genuine  knowledge  of  lohat  God  is,  and 
wliat  He  requii'es  us  to  he  and  to  do.  It  is  not  a  series 
of  personal  feelings  arising  spontaneously ;  it  does  not 
consist  of  hopes,  or  musings,  or  aspirations,  or  desires. 
It  must  rest  upon  a  sure  foundation  of  fact ;  otherwise 


O  REVELATION   NECESSARY  TO  RELIGION. 

it  is  no  better  tlian  the  raptures  or  horrors  of  a  dream, 
no  more  solid  and  real  than  the  monntains  and  valleys 
and  sunlit  pinnacles  and  towers  that  we  soinetiines 
fancy  we  can  see  in  the  clouds  of  the  evening  sky. 
Nor  is  it  easy  to  conceive — unless  the  whole  method 
of  the  divine  procedure  were,  in  the  matter  of  religion, 
to  be  inverted — how  a  revelation  should  be  given  to  us 
otherwise  than  by  direct  communication  to  compara- 
tively few  individuals,  and  by  being  entrusted,  for  its 
safe-keeping,  to  a  comparatively  limited  portion  of  man- 
kind. As  the  natural  light  of  day  is  not  a  universal 
and  uniform  brilliance,  coming  we  know  not  whence, 
but  a  light  gathered  up  as  it  were  into  one  focus, 
blazing  forth  from  the  sun,  and  reflected  upon  us, 
even  when  we  cannot  see  the  sun,  from  innumerable 
illuminated  objects,  so  the  light  of  divine  truth  was 
stored  up  in  Israel,  streams  forth  from  Christ,  and  is 
reflected  from  the  Church  and  from  the  Scriptures  and 
from  every  enlightened  soul.  The  divine  love  wliich 
gave  us  philosophy  through  the  Greeks,  the  perfection 
of  law  and  the  art  of  governing  through  the  Romans, 
bestowed  on  us  the  revelations  of  His  will  and  of  the 
truths  necessary  for  our  redemption  from  sin  and  our 
spiritual  perfection  through  His  chosen  people,  Israel. 
It  is  urged,  indeed,  by  many  that  the  ordinary 
faculties  of  the  human  mind,  the  inquisitiveness  of  the 
intellect,  the  pleasure  of  speculation,  the  fascination  of 
religion  as  an  object  of  investigation,  are  sufficient  to 
account  for  those  doctrines  or  theories  or  practical 
rules  which  lie  at  the  foundation  of  "  the  religions  of 
the  world."  But  it  is  surely  idle  to  search  for  a  cause 
until  our  attention  has  been  arrested  by  an  effect.  To 
torture  our  imasrinations  for  the  invention  of  some 


KEVELATION  NECESSARY   To  KELIGION.  9 

possible  force,  and  tlien  to  deduce  from  tliat  hypo- 
thetical force  a  series  of  hypothetical  results,  is  nothing 
hotter  than  a  foolish  waste  of  ingenuity.  If  we  could 
find  in  every  nation  that  has  a  recorded  history  a  body 
of  consistent,  well-preserved,  harmoniously  developed 
moral  and  religious  truth  and  precept,  "  shining  more 
and  more  unto  the  perfect  day,"  and  then,  as  from  the 
midday  sun,  irradiating  the  world ;  if  we  could  find 
this,  and  find  also  that  it  did  not  even  claim  to  have 
been  produced  by  any  supernatural  revelation,  any 
special  and  direct  communication  from  Almighty  God 
— then,  indeed,  there  would  be  a  problem  for  solution. 
As  it  is,  we  must  invent  not  only  the  solution,  but  the 
problem  itself.  For  it  is  notorious  that,  except  in  the 
religion  of  Israel  perfected  by  Christianity,  no  such 
body  of  truth  is  anywhere  to  be  found,  and  that  in 
Israel  it  is  always  referred  to  a  supernatural  revelation. 
"  The  Sacred  Books  of  the  East "  are  now,  in  admirable 
translations,  within  easy  reach  of  anybody  who  cares  to 
study  them.  They  have  been  studied  with  the  greatest 
enthusiasm  and  assiduity.  "Elegant  extracts''  from 
these  venerable  "Bibles"  have  been  collected  and  pub- 
lished for  the  wonder  and  admiration  of  those  strangely 
constituted  minds  which  find  a  mysterious  delight  in 
persuading  themselves  that  the  blessings  they  enjoy 
are  not  really  so  precious  as  they  were  at  first  inclined 
to  believe.  But  why  are  we  at  all  surprised  to  find 
anything  spiritual  and  sublime  in  these  ancient 
documents?  We  are  surprised  because  the  "elegant 
extracts "  are  so  "  few  and  far  between,"  just  as  we 
should  be  surprised  to  find  a  precious  diamond  in  a 
heap  of  ashes.  Who  will  seriously  contend  that  these 
Sacred  Books  are  really  consistent  and  harmonious  ? 


10  REVELATION  NECESSARY  TO  RELIGION. 

Who  will  deny  that  they  are  full  of  absurdities  ?  Who 
will  affirm  that  they  contain  a  progressive  revelation, 
every  valuable  part  of  which  has  been  preserved  even 
in  the  additions  by  which  the  earlier  portions  have 
been,  in  a  measure,  superseded  ?  Is  there  any  modern 
Buddhism  which  stands  to  the  original  Buddhism  in 
the  same  relation  in  which  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
stands  to  the  Ten  Commandments  ?  The  fact  is  that, 
excluding  Israel,  the  natural  faculties  of  man  have 
nowhere  produced  a  consistent,  well-preserved,  harmo- 
niously progressive  religion  ;  while  in  Israel  the  truths 
and  precepts  of  religion  have  invariably  been  referred 
to  a  special  and  supernatural  revelation. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  argue  the  jJOSsiMUty  of  a 
revelation  on  the  divine  side,  "  He  that  created  the 
ear,  shall  He  not  hear?  and  He  that  made  the  eye, 
shall  He  not  see  ?"  He  that  gave  us  tongues,  shall  He 
not  speak  ?  Has  the  God  who  endowed  us  with  faculties 
by  means  of  which  we  can  communicate  with  each 
other,  tell  our  neighbor  what  he  did  not  know  before, 
and  what  he  never  could  have  known  unless  we  had 
told  him — has  He  so  exhausted  Himself  in  the  act  of 
creation  that  He  has  fewer  faculties  left  than  we  possess  ? 
And  has  He  doomed  Himself  to  be  dumb  forever  in 
order  that  we  may  speak  ? 

But  the  possibility  of  a  revelation  is  often  denied  on 
the  assumption  that  the  supjmsed  recipient  of  the  revela- 
tion could  not  distinguish  the  communications  from 
without  from  the  suggestions  or  inquiries  or  guesses  of  his 
own  mind.  But  it  is  surely  obvious  that  this  is  not  a  new 
objection,  but  only  another  way  of  putting  the  objection 
which  I  have  just  been  considering.  To  deny  that 
God  can  make  Himself  heard,  is  exactly  the  same  thing 


REVELATION  NECESSARr  TO  RELIGION.  11 

as  to  deny  that  God  can  speak.  If  He  can  make  known 
His  will  to  man,  He  can  only  do  this  on  the  suppo- 
sition that  man  is  able  to  receive  the  communication. 
If  He  really  does  speak  to  any  chosen  recipient  of  His 
message,  it  will  certainly  be  as  easy  for  that  person  to 
distinguish  God's  voice  from  his  own  thoughts,  as  to 
distinguish  the  voice  of  his  father  from  the  voice  of  his 
mother. 

The  inspired  men  of  Israel,  then,  the  recipients  of 
divine  revelations,  had  no  doubt  whatever  of  what 
had  happened  to  them.  We,  who  have  never  had  their 
experience,  may  wonder  at  their  confidence;  just  as 
people  who  do  not  know  Greek  may  be  perfectly  satisfied 
that  Greek  literature  is  worthless.  But  it  is  safest  to 
get  our  information  from  people  who  do  know,  rather 
than  from  those  whose  one  qualification  to  instruct  us 
is  a  confession  of  their  own  contemptuous  ignorance. 
And,  as  the  primary  and  universal  revelation  in  con- 
science is  verified  by  innumerable  facts  and  experiences, 
so  the  revelations  to  the  lawgivers,  psalmists,  prophets 
of  Israel  were  verified  both  by  individuals  and  by  the 
nation.  Many  of  the  prophets  were  persecuted,  re- 
jected, even  put  to  death;  but  their  message  was 
verified  all  the  same.  Ahab  hated  Micaiah,  shut  him 
up  in  prison,  fed  him  "  with  the  bread  of  affliction  and 
the  water  of  affliction";  but  it  was  absolutely  impos- 
sible either  to  silence  or  disbelieve  him.  "  Is  there  not 
here  a  prophet  of  the  Lord  lesides''  these  court  chap- 
lains? asks  Jehoshaphat;  and  Micaiah  must  be  brought 
forth.  Moreover,  we  know  the  end  of  Ahab.  Sophis- 
ticate as  we  may  about  the  mode  by  which  divine  and 
irresistible  truth  has  come  to  us,  when  it  does  come 
it  "comes  home"  to  us;  and,  when  we  try  to  resist 


12  REVELATION   NECESSARY  TO   RELIGION, 

it,  we  know  that  we  are  resisting  God.  The  prophets 
say,  "Thussaith  the  Lord":  our  hearts  and  consciences 
respond,  "  No  other  conld  so  have  spoken  to  ns." 
There  may  be  false  prophets,  but  we  know  the  false 
ring  of  their  voices.  Hundreds  of  false  prophets  were 
against  Micaiah  in  the  days  of  Ahab;  but  nobody  who 
really  "wished  to  do  the  will  of  God  "  failed  to  "  know 
of  the  doctrine." 

But  it  is  not  enough  that  a  revelation  should  be 
given :  it  must  also  be  jjrotectcd.  If  the  revelation  be 
gradual  and  continuous,  the  earlier  portions  must  be 
assimilated  before  the  later  portions  are  bestowed. 
The  early  Church  Fathers  spoke  of  a  "dispensation 
of  paganism,"  of  philosophy  as  a  "  schoolmaster  to  bring 
men  to  Christ."  But  whatever  may  have  been  the 
value  of  philosophy,  and  however  genuine  may  have 
been  the  fragments  of  divine  truth  to  be  discovered 
in  heathen  religions,  their  spiritual  power  was  dissi- 
pated for  want  of  some  protective  envelope.  The 
evolution  of  heathenism  was  always  in  the  wrong 
direction — in  the  direction  of  corruption;  and  the 
speculations  of  philosophers  were  neither  authoritative, 
nor  in  a  form  adapted  for  practical  use.  It  is  charac- 
teristic of  the  revelation  which  is  at  the  foundation  of 
the  religion  of  Israel  that  it  was  stored  partly  in  those 
written  records  which  make  up,  taken  all  together, 
the  Old  Testament  Scriptures ;  and  partly  in  national 
and  ecclesiastical  institutions,  which  were  themselves 
in  a  large  degree  directly  commanded  by  God,  and  a 
description  of  which  forms  also  a  large  part  of  the 
same  sacred  writings.  It  is  this  fact  which  gives 
a  supreme  and  authoritative  value  to  the  Bible  to 
which  no  other  literature  can  make  the  slightest 
pretension. 


REVELATION   NECESSARY   TO   RELIGION.  13 

I  cannot  better  express  this  than  in  the  words  of  one 
who  combines  in  a  highly  exceptional  degree  Avith 
accurate  learning  the  best  qualities  of  a  popular  writer ; 
and  who  can  by  nobody  be  suspected  of  any  undue 
bias  in  the  direction  of  what  is  sometimes  called 
Bibliolatry.  The  practical  point,  says  Dr.  Kobertson 
Smith,* 

in  all  controversy  as  to  the  distinctive  character  of  the  revela- 
tion of  God  to  Israel  regards  the  place  of  Scripture  as  the 
permanent  rule  of  faith  and  the  sufficient  and  unfailing  guide 
in  all  our  religious  life.     When  we  say  that  God  dealt  with 
Israel  in   the  way  of    special    revelation,   and  crowned   His 
dealings  by  personally  manifesting  all  His  grace  and  truth  in 
Christ  Jesus  the  incarnate  Word,  we  mean  that  the  Bible 
contains  within  itself  a  perfect  picture  of  God's  gracious  rela- 
tions with  man,  and  that  we  have  no  need  to  go  outside  of  the 
Bible  history  to  learn  anything  of  God  and  His  saving  will 
towards  us— that  the  whole  growth  of  the  true  religion  up  to  its 
perfect  fullness  is  set  before  us  in  the  record  of  God's  dealing 
with  Israel,  culminating  in  the  manifestation  of  Jesus  Christ. 
There  can  be  no  question  that  Jesus  Christ  Himself  held  tliis  view; 
and  we  cannot  depart  from  it  without  making  Him  an  imperfect 
teacher  and  an  imperfect  Saviour.     Yet  history  has  not  taught 
us  that  there  is  anything  in  true  religion  to  add  to  the  New 
Testament.     We  still  stand  in  the  nineteenth  century  where 
He  stood  in  the  first,  or  rather  He  statids  as  high  above  us  as 
He  did  above  His  disciples,  the  perfect  Master,  the  supreme 
Head  of  the  fellowship  of  all  true  religion. 

It  is  a  bold  thing,  therefore,  to  affirm  that  we  have  any  need 
to  seek  a  wider  historical  foundation  for  our  faith  than  sutficcd 
Him  whose  disciples  we  are,  and  I  apprehend  that  the  apparent 
difficulty  of  the  supposition  that  the  whole  course  of  revelation 

*  The  Frojjhets  of  Israel,  etc.,  pp.  10-13  (Scribner's  Edition, 
1882).  However  reasonably  we  may  hesitate  to  accept  many  of 
Dr.  Smith's  hypotheses,  it  is  impossible  to  road  liis  Lectures 
without  profit  and  a  very  keen  enjoyment. 


14  REVELATION  NECESSARY  TO  RELIGION. 

transacted  itself  in  the  narrow  circle  of  a  single  nation  is  not  so 
great  as  it  appears  at  first  sight.  For  it  is  not  necessary  to 
suppose  that  God  gave  no  true  knowledge  of  Himself  to  seekers 
after  truth  among  the  Gentiles.  The  New  Testament  affirms, 
on  the  contrary,  that  the  nations  were  never  left  without  some 
manifestation  of  that  which  may  be  known  of  God  (Rom.  i.  19  ; 
Acts  xvii.  27) ;  and  the  thinkers  of  the  early  Church  gave  shape 
to  this  truth  in  the  doctrine  of  the  'Aoyog  aTrepfinTinog — the  seed  of 
the  Divine  Word  scattered  through  all  mankind. 

But,  while  all  right  thoughts  of  God  in  every  nation  come 
from  God  Himself,  it  is  plain  that  a  personal  knowledge  of  God 
and  His  will — and  without  personal  knowledge  there  can  be  no 
true  religion — involves  a  personal  dealing  of  God  with  men. 
Such  personal  dealing  again  necessarily  implies  a  special  dealing 
with  chosen  individuals.  To  say  that  God  speaks  to  all  men 
alike,  and  gives  the  same  connnunication  directly  to  all  without 
the  use  of  a  revealing  agency,  reduces  religion  to  mysticism. 
In  point  of  fact  it  is  not  true  in  the  case  of  any  man  that  what 
he  believes  and  knows  of  God  hns  come  to  him  directly  through 
the  voice  of  nature  and  conscience.  All  true  knowledge  of  God 
is  verified  by  personal  experience.  There  is  a  positive  element 
in  all  religion,  an  element  which  we  have  learned  from  those 
who  went  before  us.  If  what  is  so  learned  is  true,  we  must 
ultimately  come  back  to  a  point  in  history  when  it  was  new 
truth,  acquired  as  all  new  truth  is  by  some  particular  man  or 
circle  of  men,  who,  as  they  did  not  learn  it  from  their  prede- 
cessors, must  have  got  it  by  personal  revelation  from  God 
Himself.  To  deny  that  Christianity  can  ultimately  be  traced 
back  to  such  acts  of  revelation,  taking  place  at  a  definite  time 
in  a  definite  circle,  involves  in  the  last  resort  a  denial  that  there 
is  any  true  religion  at  all,  or  that  religion  is  anything  more  than 
a  vague  subjective  feeling.  If  religion  is  more  than  this,  the 
true  knowledge  of  God  and  His  saving  will  must  in  the  first 
instance  have  grown  up  in  a  definite  part  of  the  earth,  and  in 
connection  with  the  history  of  a  limited  section  of  mankind. 
For  if  revelation  were  not  to  be  altogether  futile,  it  was  necessary 
that  each  new  communication  of  God  should  Iniild  on  those 
which  had  gone  liel'ore,  and  therefore  that  it  should  be  made 


REVELATION  NECESSARY  TO  RELIGION.  15 

within  that  society  which  had  already  appropriated  the  sum  of 
previous  revelations.  Some  true  knowledge  of  God  might  exist 
outside  of  this  society,  but  at  all  events  there  must  have  been 
a  society  of  men  possessed  of  the  whole  series  of  divine  teachings 
in  a  consecutive  and  adequate  form.  And  under  the  conditions 
of  ancient  life  this  society  could  not  be  other  than  a  nation,  for 
there  was  then  no  free  communication  and  interchange  of  ideas 
such  as  now  exists  between  remote  parts  of  the  globe.  Until  the 
Greek  and  Roman  empires  broke  up  the  old  barriers  of  nation- 
ality, the  intellectual  and  moral  life  of  each  ancient  people 
moved  in  its  own  channel,  receiving  only  slight  contributions 
from  the  outside.  There  is  nothing  unreasonable,  therefore,  in 
the  idea  that  the  true  religion  was  originally  developed  in 
national  form  within  the  people  of  Israel ;  nay,  this  limitation 
corresponds  to  the  historical  conditions  of  the  problem. 

Butthe  written  records  of  divine  revelations  through- 
out the  whole  history  of  Israel,  and  especially  at  the 
very  beginning  of  that  history,  were  exceedingly  scanty, 
and  were  scarcely  at  all  available  directly  for  the  whole 
body  of  the  people.  We  find  it  excessively  difficult — 
most  of  us  find  it  absolutely  impossible — to  realize  in 
any  vivid  way  a  condition  of  society  in  which  there 
were  no  books  and  no  readers;  in  which  almost  all 
instruction  was  oral,  and  memory  took  the  place  of 
printing.  In  such  a  state  of  society,  though  written 
records  were  of  inestimable  value  and  even  absolutely 
necessary,  they  were  at  the  same  time,  taken  alone, 
wholly  inadequate  for  the  protection  and  dissemination 
of  religious  truth.  That  truth  was  preserved  for 
general  practical  purposes  in  an  altogether  different 
way — viz.:  by  rites  and  ceremonies,  by  a  religious 
cultus,  by  fasts  and  festivals,  by  sacrifices  and  a  priest- 
hood. The  deliverance  of  Israel  from  Egypt,  the 
redeeming  love  of  their  God,  His  direct  personal  inter- 
vention  for   their    salvation.  His   claim    upon    their 


16  REVELATION   NECESSARY  TO  RELIGION. 

obedience — all  this  nmy  have  been  affirmed  in  written 
records;  but  the  records  were  not  within  the  reach  of 
those  who  most  needed  to  be  reminded  of  these  primary 
facts.  The  divine  method  of  instructing  the  great 
body  of  the  people  can  be  best  expressed  in  the  words 
of  the  book  Exodus.  Not  a  parchment  roll,  but  the 
Feast  of  the  Passover,  was  "  the  Bible "  of  Israel : 
"And  it  shall  come  to  pass,  when  your  children  shall 
say  unto  you,  What  mean  ye  by  this  service  ?  that  ye 
shall  say,  It  is  tjie  sacrifice  of  the  Lord's  passover,  wlio 
passed  over  the  houses  of  the  children  of  Israel  in 
Egypt,  when  He  smote  the  Egyptians  and  delivered 
our  houses."  The  Feast  of  the  Passover  was  instituted 
not  only  as  a  religious  service,  in  which  each  family 
or  each  individual  Israelite  should  gratefully  renew 
his  covenant  with  Jehovah,  and  realize  afresh  the 
infinite  and  eternal  love  in  whose  shelter  it  was  his 
inestimable  privilege  to  abide,  but  also  as  a  Record  of 
Revelation,  a  permanent  instruction  as  to  historic  facts 
and  their  moral  and  spiritual  significance.  And  this 
mode  of  instruction  will  be  always  necessary,  as  I  shall 
try  to  show  you  in  a  later  sermon  during  this  season  of 
Advent.  In  modern  times  it  is  rendered  necessary  not 
by  the  scantiness,  but  by  the  abundance  of  literature ; 
by  the  deluge  of  printed  matter  which  scarcely  rises 
to  the  level  of  literature;  and  by  the  restless  curiosity 
and  illimitable  speculation  of  the  human  mind.  No 
religion  has  been  preserved  without  a  cultus,  a  ceremo- 
nial, a  hierarchy,  an  organization,  and  to  this  law  the 
Christian  religion  is  most  assuredly  no  exception.  Of 
tliis  law  the  Christian  religion  is  the  most  conspicuous 
example. 

Even  with  the  aid  of  printed  books  meji  are  slow 


REVELATION  NECESSARY  TO  RELIGION.  17 

learners;  and  in  moral  and  spiritual  truth  they  are 
also  reluctant  learners.  They  must  have  "  line  upon 
line,  precept  upon  precept,  here  a  little  and  there  a 
little."  And  the  revelation  of  God  to  Israel  was 
gradual,  progressive,  harmonious ;  and,  that  it  might 
be  this,  each  lesson  had  to  be  well  learned.  Some 
learned  the  lesson  sooner  than  others.  They  were, 
tlierefore,  prepared  for  further  instruction ;  and,  when 
the  time  was  fully  come,  the  further  instruction  was 
imparted.  But  the  old  did  not  cease  to  be  true  because 
it  was  imperfect:  it  was  included  and  preserved  in  the 
complete  revelation.  Let  us  consider  two  examples  of 
this  at  once  conservative  and  progressive  teaching: 
the  practice  and  doctrine  of  sacrifice,  and  the  effect  of 
the  sin  of  the  fathers  upon  the  condition  and  welfare 
of  their  children. 

Sacrifice  is  a  part  of  tlie  practical  expression  of  all 
known  religions.  There  have  been  earnest  reformers 
who  have  been,  for  various  reasons,  shocked  and  dis- 
gusted by  what  seemed  to  them  the  waste  of  life  and  the 
pain  of  sentient  creatures  involved  in  sacrifice.  These 
reformers  have,  in  a  very  few  instances,  had  a  force  of 
personal  character  which  enabled  them  to  persuade 
vast  multitudes  of  people  to  discontinue  sacrifice,  and, 
for  the  same  reasons,  to  abstain  from  animal  food,  and 
to  walk  warily  over  the  very  grass  lest  they  should 
crush  an  insect.  But  when  the  personal  force  of  these 
great  teacliers  was  spent,  sacrifice  was  resumed  ;  or  some 
other  form  of  self-immolation  or  offering  was  substi- 
tuted for  sacrifice  which  was  of  essentially  tlie  same 
nature.  TJiese  highly  exceptional  cases  —  so  far  as 
they  really  are  exceptional — may  be  left  out  of  con- 
sideration. 


18  REVELATION  NECESSARY  TO  RELIGION. 

Of  course  it  is  easy  enongh  to  ridicule  sacrifice,  as 
implying  a  very  low  theology — the  belief  that  in  form 
and  in  passions  God  is  made  in  our  own  image.  The 
Homeric  gods  feasting  with  "  the  blameless  Ethio- 
pians," are  very  different  from  the  God  whom  Isaiah 
or  St.  John  saw  in  their  visions.  But,  for  my  own 
part,  I  believe  that  the  grossest  superstitions  are  not 
only,  for  the  most  part,  morally  better,  but  even  nearer 
to  the  absolute  and  literal  truth  concerning  God  than 
materialism  and  atheism.  Supposing  sacrifice  were 
the  outward  expression  of  the  belief  that  divine  beings, 
superior  to  ourselves  and  having  power  over  us,  and 
some  sort  of  rightful  claim  upon  our  obedience  and 
service,  were  pleased  with  banquets,  with  the  flesh  of 
slain  beasts  and  the  fragrance  of  incense,  this  Avould  be 
much  nearer  the  truth  than  the  belief  that  there  is  no 
God  at  all,  or  that  God  cares  nothing  for  us — that  He 
is  equally  indifterent  to  our  homage  and  contempt. 
The  first  lesson  for  us  to  learn  is  the  reality  of  God, 
that  He  requires  our  service,  that  He  will  call  us  to 
account  for  our  sins.  The  religion  of  Israel  not  only 
did  not  originate  sacrifices,  but  rather  restrained  them. 
They  were  not  to  be  multiplied  to  suit  the  caprice  of 
individuals:  they  were  to  be  of  a  particular  kind  and 
quality,  offered  at  particular  times  and  places,  by  par- 
ticular individuals  set  apart  for  that  office.  But  in 
Israel  they  meant  this  :  We  are  wholly  dependent  upon 
God;  we  must  respond  to  His  grace  by  our  love;  we 
must  prove  the  sincerity  of  our  love  by  actual  service  ; 
Ave  must  confess  our  sins  to  Him,  and  gratefully  adopt 
the  means  Avhich  He  provides  for  reconciliation  to 
Himself  and  restored  communion  with  His  people. 
These  were  the  lessons  to  be  inwoven  into  the  daily 
life,  into  the  hearts  and  consciences  of  the  people  of 


REVELATION  NECESSARY  TO  RELIGION.  19 

Israel.  They  had  no  books  available.  The  lessons 
were  object-lessons.  As  such,  they  were  at  once  true 
and  incomplete ;  but  because  they  were  true  they  were 
to  be  learned ;  also,  because  they  were  incomplete,  they 
were  to  be  learned,  and  thoroughly  learned,  as  the 
indispensable  preparation  for  fuller  knowledge.  When 
the  lesson  itself  had  been  laid  to  heart  and  made  a  part 
of  the  moral  and  intellectual  nature  of  the  people, 
prophet  after  prophet  came  to  show  them  its  innermost 
meaning ;  to  warn  them  against  mistaking  the  form 
for  the  substance ;  to  prepare  them  for  that  day  when 
"  Christ  our  Passover  was  sacrificed  for  us." 

Another  example  of  the  conservative  development  of 
the  religion  of  Israel  is  to  be  found  in  the  commentary  of 
Ezekiel  on  a  portion  even  of  the  Ten  Commandments. 
The  Ten  Commandments  were  the  very  central  revela- 
tion of  human  duty  bestowed  upon  Israel.  The  text 
upon  which  Ezekiel  commented  was  the  familiar  pas- 
sage in  what  we  call  the  Second  Commandment :  "  I, 
the  Lord  thy  God,  am  a  jealous  God,  and  visit  the  sins 
of  the  fathers  upon  the  children,  unto  the  third  and 
fourth  generation  of  them  that  hate  rae."  These  words 
were  true  in  the  days  of  Moses,  and  they  are  true  now. 
Nobody  can  sin  for  himself  alone.  He  is  sure  to  involve 
in  the  calamity  which  he  deserves,  and  which  to  him  is 
a  direct  pimishment,  everybody  with  whom  he  is  at  all 
intimately  related.  This  is  not  a  fact  because  it  is 
declared  in  Scripture,  but  it  is  declared  in  Scripture 
because  it  is  a  fact  of  universal  experience.  And  it 
was  of  the  utmost  possible  importance  that  the 
Israelites  should  have  this  fact  rooted  in  their 
memories:  it  was  a  fact,  however  foolishly  they  might 
explain  it,  and  it  was  incalculably  better  to  explain  it 
foolishly  than  altogether  to  forget  or  neglect  it.     This 


20  KEVELATION   NECESSARY  TO   RELIGION. 

was  better  for  them,  and  Avould  be  better  for  us  and 
for  all  men.  But  in  the  time  of  Ezekiel  men  had 
begun  to  anticipate  the  modern  scientific  doctrine  of 
"heredity"  and  "moral  insanity."  As  many  of  our 
physicians  and  scientific  instructors  know  nothing  of 
theft,  or  drunkenness,  or  murder,  but  only  of  klepto- 
mania, or  dipsomania,  or  homicidal  mania ;  as 
they  investigate,  not  a  man's  conscience  and  habits, 
but  his  family  history;  so,  in  the  days  of  Ezekiel, 
people  were  saying:  'It  is  not  our  fault  that  we 
are  wicked  and  miserable :  we  inherit  our  vices 
and  our  distress :  "  the  fathers  have  eaten  sour  grapes, 
and  the  children's  teeth  are  set  on  edge."  '  So  it 
was  necessary  for  the  prophet  to  distinguish  between 
suffering  and  punishment;  and  to  remind  God's  people 
that  each  individual  soul  had  its  own  priceless  value  in 
the  eyes  of  Jehovah ;  that  God  would  deal  with  every 
man  according  to  his  own  works ;  that  "  the  soul  that 
sinneth  it  shall  die."  Thus  throughout  the  history  of 
Israel  the  chosen  people  received  revelations  through 
special  messengers  chosen  of  God ;  these  revelations 
were  recorded  in  written  Scriptures;  they  were 
embodied  in  national  and  ecclesiastical  institutions,  in 
a  cultus,  in  rites  and  ceremonies,  fasts  and  feasts, 
sacrifices  and  priests.  AVhen  they  had  been  inwoven 
into  the  habits,  the  very  nature,  of  the  people,  new 
revelations  were  given,  at  once  conservative  and  pro- 
gressive. Hence  the  religion  of  Israel  was  never  lost 
and  was  never  stagnant.  And  even  now  it  is  true  that 
Christ  Himself  came  "  not  to  destroy  the  law  and  the 
prophets,  but  to  fulfil  them  " ;  and  that  the  Bible  is 
"  the  statesman's  manual "  ;  and  the  prophets  of  Israel 
are  the  prophets  of  the  whole  human  race — for  "  unto 
them  were  entrusted  the  oracles  of  God." 


THE  REVELATION  OF  GOD  IN  JESUS 
CHRIST.* 

God,  having  of  old  time  spoken  unto  (he  fathers  in  the 
prophets  by  divers  portions  and  in  divers  manners,  hath  at  the 
end  of  these  days  spoken  unto  us  in  a  Son,  tvhom  He  ajipointed 
heir  of  all  things,  through  ivhom  also  He  made  the  worlds  .... 
the  effulgence  of  His  glory  a?id  the  very  image  of  His  substwnce. 
— Hebrews  i.  1-3. 

I  was  reminding  you  last  Sunday  morning  that  a 
direct  revelation  from  God  Himself  to  man  is  at  the 
foundation  of  all  true  religion  ;  that  religion  does  not 
consist  of  spontaneous  desires,  or  curious  speculations, 
or  vivid  emotions,  or  logically  constructed  theories,  or 
modes  of  conduct  suggested  by  prudence,  but  is  based 
upon  a  reality  and  a  truth,  which  we  may  deny,  indeed, 
but  which  we  cannot  make  other  than  they  are.  We 
are,  of  course,  perfectly  familiar  with  the  fact  that  we 
did  not  invent  otir  oivn  religion,  whatever  that  religion 
may  be  :  we  were  "  born  and  bred  "in  it.  We  accepted 
and  believed  it  long  before  we  had  either  the  power  or 
the  inclination  to  verify  or  examine  it.  We  received  it 
by  tradition  on  authority,  though  we  may  liave  for- 
gotten by  whom  it  was  handed  on  to  us,  and  though 
their  authority  may  have  been  no  more  or  higher  than 
that  of  parents  or  teachers  or  elders.  It  is  conceivable 
that  we  might,  in  process  of  time  and  in  favourable 
circumstances,    have  "thought    out    for    ourselves" 

*  Preached  on  the  second  Sunday  in  Advent,  1885. 


22  KEVELATION   OF   GOD  IN   JESUS   CHKIST. 

much  of  what  we  now  accept  without  furtlier  need  of 
inquiry.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  our  religion  did  not 
come  to  us  in  that  way.  It  was  revealed  to  us  by  other 
people,  whencesoever  they  may  have  derived  it.  Nearly 
the  whole  of  what  we  have  done  for  ourselves  is  not 
discovery,  but  verification  ;  and  the  verification  would 
neither  have  been  attempted  nor  possible  but  for  the 
primary  instruction  to  which  it  is  applied.  The  most 
that  we  can  say  is  like  what  her  fellovv-townspeople 
said  to  the  woman  of  Samaria :  "  From  that  city  many 

of  the  Samaritans  believed  on  Jesus And  many 

more  believed  because  of  His  word  :  and  they  said  to 
the  woman,  Now  we  believe,  not  because  of  thy  speak- 
ing :  for  we  have  heard  for  ourselves,  and  know  that 
this  is  indeed  the  Saviour  of  the  world."  Neverthe- 
less, but  for  her  "  speaking  "  they  could  never  "  have 
heard  for  themselves." 

But,  sooner  or  later,  we  come  to  a  point  in  the 
history  of  religious  truth  when  this  or  that  part  of  it 
appears /or  the  first  tune.'*  There  has  been  no  previous 
tradition ;  the  new  truth  produces  a  more  or  less 
violent  revolution ;  it  is  the  starting-point  of  a  new 
life,  in  individuals,  in  nations.  There  are  some  who 
can  persuade  themselves  that  this  can  be  easily 
accounted  for.  They  say,  "The  air  was  full  of  it"; 
was  charged  with  electricity;  and  lo!  a  man  taller 
than  the  rest  appears,  and  the  lightning  flashes  out. 
Or  society  has  been  long  saturated  with  the  truth;  the 
solvent  fluid  has  been  slowly  evaporating;  and  lo ! 
some  otherwise  insignificant  person  puts  in,  it  may  be, 
a  mere  finger  and  we  have  the  crystals.  But  the 
weakness  of  this  theory  is  that  there  is  not  a  single 

*See  the  j^assage  quoted  from  Dr.  Robertson  Smith  on  p.  13. 


REVELATION   OF   GOD  IN  JESUS  CHRIST.  23 

atom  of  evidence — in  the  really  important  and  crucial 
instances — that  the  air  was  so  charged  or  society  so 
saturated.  Were  the  tribes  of  Israel,  debased  by  slavery 
in  Egypt,  saturated  with  the  Mosaic  law ;  or,  later,  Avith 
the  spiritual  truths  proclaimed  by  the  prophets? 
How,  then,  does  it  happen  that  they  were  continually 
relapsing  into  idolatry,  and  that  their  noblest  prophets 
were  hated  and  persecuted  and  slain  ?  "0  Jerusalem, 
Jerusalem !  Thou  that  Oiliest  the  prophets,  and 
stonest  them  that  are  sent  unto  thee  I"  Was  Galilee  or 
Jerusalem  "  saturated  "  with  the  truth  which  "  crys- 
tallized "  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth  ?  Men  "  were  aston- 
ished at  His  teaching  " ;  for  a  short  time  they  admired  ; 
then  they  doubted,  hated,  denied,  and  gave  their  final 
verdict  in  the  cry,  "  Not  this  man,  but  liarabbas."  In 
the  inner  circle  of  Christ's  disciples  His  teaching  was 
a  bewildering  mystery;  outside  that  circle  the  "  Christ " 
with  which  society  was  saturated  crystallized  in  the 
AjMcryphal  Gospels,  and  in  heresies  so  grotesque  that  it 
is  difficult  not  to  refute  but  to  understand  them. 

The  prophets  themselves  declared  that  they  had 
received  the  new  truths  they  proclaimed  from  God 
Himself.  If  that  ivere  so,  they  must  certainly  have 
known  it.  Nor  is  it  any  disproof  of  what  they  declared 
that  we  have  received  no  direct  revelations.  At  any 
rate,  the  only  alternative  is  that  the  prophets  were  men 
of  subtle  intellect,  of  wide  culture — I  might  almost 
add  of  a  crazed  enthusiasm.  They  were  so  possessed 
by  the  truth  which  they  had  discovered  that  they  found 
doubt  impossible ;  and  affirmed  their  own  certitude 
nnder  the  disguise  of  a  supernatural  revelation.  This 
hypothesis  would  begin  to  be  credible  if  the  prophets 
had  been  such  men,  if  they  had  possessed  that  unshaken 


24  REVELATION  OF  GOD  IN  JESUS  CHRIST. 

certitude  as  to  their  own  ojnmons;  but  we  know  from 
the  records  which  are  the  only  source  of  our  knowl- 
edge even  of  the  existence  of  tliese  prophets,  that  they 
were  fixr  other  men.  The  Book  of  the  Prophet  Jeremiah 
alone  is  the  conclusive  disproof  of  all  these  ingenious 
theories.  Take  his  own  account  of  what  we  may  con- 
sider his  "  call "  to  the  work  of  a  prophet  (i.  4-10) : 

Now  the  word  of  the  Lord  came  unto  rae,  saying,  Before  I 
formed  thee  in  the  belly  I  knew  thee,  and  before  thou  earnest 
forth  out  of  tlie  womb  I  sanctified  thee ;  I  have  appointed 
thee  a  prophet  unto  the  nations.  Then  said  I,  Ah,  Lord  God  ! 
behold,  I  cannot  speak  :  for  I  am  a  cliild.  But  the  Lord  said 
ixnto  me,  Say  not,  I  am  a  child  ;  for  to  whomsoever  I  shall  send 
thee  thou  shalt  go,  and  whatsoever  I  shall  command  thee  thou 
shalt  speak.  Be  not  afraid  because  of  them :  for  I  am  with 
thee  to  deliver  thee,  saith  the  Lord.  Then  the  Lord  put  forth 
His  hand  and  touched  my  mouth  ;  and  the  Lord  said  unto  me, 
Behold,  I  have  put  My  words  in  thy  mouth  :  see,  I  have  this 
day  set  thee  over  the  nations  and  over  the  kingdoms,  to  pluck 
up  and  to  break  down,  and  to  destroy  and  to  overthrow,  to 
build  and  to  plant. 

And  now  let  us  hearhis  own  account  of  his  prophetic 
work  (viii.  18-ix.  2) : 

Oh  that  I  could  comfort  myself  against  sorrow  !  my  heart  is 
faint  within  me.  Behold,  the  voice  of  the  cry  of  the  daughter 
of  my  people  from  a  laTid  that  is  very  far  off :  Is  not  the  Lord 
in  Zion  ?  is  not  her  King  in  her  ?  Why  have  they  provoked  me 
to  anger  with  their  graven  images,  and  with  strange  vanities  ? 
The  harvest  is  past,  the  summer  is  ended,  and  we  are  not 
saved.  For  the  hurt  of  the  daughter  of  my  people  am  I  hurt : 
I  am  black  ;  astonishment  hath  taken  hold  on  me.  Ls  there  no 
balm  in  Gilead  ?  is  there  no  physician  tliere  ?  why  then  is  not 
the  health  of  the  daughter  of  my  people  recovered  ?  Oh  that 
my  head  were  waters,  and  mine  eyes  a  fountain  of  tears,  that  I 
might  weep  day  and  night  for  the  slain  of  the  daughter  of  my 


KEVELATION   OF   GOD  IN  JESUS  CHRIST.  25 

people !  Oh  tliat  I  had  in  the  wilderness  a  lodging  place  of 
wayfaring  men  ;  that  I  might  leave  my  people,  and  go  from 
them !  for  they  be  all  adulterers,  an  assembly  of  treacherous 
men. 

And  again  (xv.  10-18) : 

Woe  is  me,  my  mother,  that  thou  hast  borne  me  a  man  of 
strife  and  a  man  of  contention  to  the  whole  earth  !  I  have  not 
lent  on  usury,  neither  have  men  lent  to  me  on  usury ;  yet  every 
one  of  them  doth  curse  me.  The  Lord  said,  Verily  I  will 
strengthen  thee  for  good  ;  verily  I  will  cause  the  enemy  to  make 
supplication  unto  thee  in  the  time  of  evil  and  in  the  time  of 
affliction. 

Can  one  break  iron,  even  iron  from  the  north,  and  brass? 
Tiiy  substance  and  thy  treasures  will  I  give  for  a  spoil  without 
price,  and  that  for  all  thy  sins,  even  in  all  thy  borders.  And  I 
will  make  them  to  pass  with  thine  enemies  into  a  land  which 
thou  knowest  not :  for  a  fire  is  kindled  in  Mine  anger  which 
shall  burn  upon  you. 

0  Lord,  thou  knowest:  remember  me,  and  visit  me,  and 
avenge  me  of  my  persecutors  ;  take  me  not  away  in  Thy  long- 
suffering:  know  that  for  Thy  sake  I  have  suffered  reproach. 
Thy  words  were  found,  and  I  did  eat  them  ;  and  Thy  words  were 
unto  me  a  joy  and  the  rejoicing  of  mine  heart :  for  I  am  called 
by  Thy  name,  0  Lord  God  of  hosts.  I  sat  not  in  the  assembly 
of  them  that  make  merry,  nor  rejoiced  :  I  sat  alone  because  of 
Thy  hand  ;  for  Thou  hast  filled  me  with  indignation.  Why  is 
my  pain  perpetual,  and  my  wound  incurable,  which  rcfusethto 
be  healed  ?  wilt  Thou  indeed  be  unto  me  as  a  deceitful  brook,  as 
waters  that  fail  ? 

And  again  (xvii.  12-18): 

A  glorious  throne,  set  on  high  from  the  beginning,  is  the 
place  of  our  sanctuary.  0  Lord,  the  hope  of  Israel,  all  that 
forsake  Thee  shall  be  ashamed  ;  they  that  depart  from  me  shall 
be  written  in  the  earth,  because  they  have  forsaken  the  Lord, 
the  fountain  of  living  waters.  Heal  me,  0  Lord,  and  I  shall  be 
healed  ;  save  me,  and  I  shall  be  saved  :  for  Thou  art  my  praise. 


26  REVELATION  OF  GOD  IN  JESUS  CHKIST. 

Boliold,  they  say  unto  me,  Where  is  the  word  of  tlie  Lord?  let 
it  come  now.  As  for  me,  I  have  not  hastened  from  being  a 
shepherd  after  Thee  ;  neither  have  I  desired  the  woeful  day  ; 
Thou  knowest :  that  whicli  came  out  of  my  lips  was  before  Thy 
face.  Be  not  a  terror  unto  me  :  Thou  art  my  refuge  in  the  day 
of  evil.  Let  them  be  ashamed  that  persecute  me,  but  let  not 
me  be  ashamed  ;  let  them  be  dismayed,  but  let  not  me  be  dis- 
mayed ;  bring  upon  them  the  day  of  evil,  and  destroy  them 
with  double  destruction. 

And  once  again  (xx.  7-18)  : 

OLord,  Thou  hast  deceived  me,  and  I  was  deceived  :  Thou  art 
stronger  than  I,  and  hast  prevailed :  I  am  become  a  laughing- 
stock all  the  day,  every  one  mockcth  me.  For  as  often  as  I 
speak  1  cry  out  ;  I  cry.  Violence  and  spoil ;  because  the  word 
of  the  Lord  is  made  a  reproach  unto  me,  and  a  derision,  all  the 
day.  And  if  I  say,  I  will  not  make  mention  of  Him,  nor  speak 
any  more  in  His  name,  then  there  is  in  mine  heart  as  it  were  a 
burning  fire  shut  up  in  my  bones,  and  1  am  weary  with  for- 
bearing, and  1  cannot  contain.  For  I  have  heard  the  defaming 
of  many,  terror  on  every  side.  Denounce,  and  we  will  denounce 
him,  say  all  my  familiar  friends,  they  that  watch  for  my 
halting  ;  peradventure  he  will  be  enticed,  and  we  shall  prevail 
against  him,  and  we  shall  take  our  revenge  on  him.  But  the 
Lord  is  witli  me  as  a  mighty  one  and  a  terrible  ;  therefore  my 
persecutors  shall  stumble,  and  they  shall  not  prevail ;  they  shall 
be  greatly  ashamed,  because  they  have  not  dealt  wisely,  even 
with  an  everlasting  dishonour  which  shall  never  be  forgotten. 
But,  0  Lord  of  hosts,  that  triest  the  righteous,  that  seest  the 
reins  and  the  heart,  let  me  see  Thy  vengeance  on  them  ;  for  unto 
Thee  have  I  revealed  my  cause.  Sing  unto  the  Lord,  praise  ye 
the  Lord  :  for  He  hath  delivered  the  soul  of  the  needy  from  the 
hand  of  evil-doers. 

Cursed  be  the  day  wherein  I  was  born :  let  not  the  day 
wherein  my  mother  bare  me  be  blessed.  Cursed  be  the 
man  who  brought  tidings  to  my  father,  saying,  A  man  child 
is  born  unto  thee ;  making  him  very  glad.  And  let  that  man 
be  as  the  cities  which  the  Ijord  overthrew,  and  repented  not : 


REVELATION  OF  GOD  IN  JESUS  CHRIST.  27 

and  let  him  hear  a  cry  in  the  morning,  and  sliouting  at  noon- 
tide ;  becanse  he  slew  me  not  from  the  womb;  and  so  my 
mother  shoukl  have  been  my  grave,  and  her  womb  always  great. 
Wherefoi'e  came  I  out  of  the  womb  to  see  labour  and  sori'ow, 
that  my  days  should  be  consumed  with  shame  ? 

Are  these  the  words  of  a  man  whose  doctrine  was 
"in  the  air";  who  simply  gave  eloquent  expression  to 
what  everybody  was  already  thinking?  Are  these  the 
words  of  a  subtle  speculator,  a  mystic  dreamer,  a  great 
moral  discoverer?  Is  this  a  man  fired  with  a  pas- 
sionate enthusiasm  for  his  own  opinions,  and  deter- 
mined, with  the  intellectual  heroism  of  which  we  have 
so  many  examples,  at  all  cost  to  proclaim  them? 
Most  unmistakably,  such  questions  answer  tliemselves. 
Jeremiah  at  any  rate  believed  that  he  was  sent  and 
instructed  hy  God.  He  feared  and  hoped,  was  bold 
and  timid,  believed  and  doubted,  suffered  excruciating 
agony,  Avas  distracted  by  the  love  of  his  people  and  his 
horror  at  their  wickedness  and  his  sure  foresight  of 
their  doom;  and  he  was  kept  steadily  to  his  work,  he 
was  enabled  to  resist  his  enemies  and  to  rise  above  the 
contradictions  of  his  own  heart  and  mind,  only  by  the 
absolute  certainty  that  God  had  sent  him,  and  that  he 
was  speaking  not  the  thoughts  of  his  own  heart,  but 
the  message  of  the  Eternal. 

But  it  is  included  in  the  very  idea  of  revelation 
that,  while  it  coxwqs  from  God,  it  is  given  to  men,  and 
disseminated  by  men.  In  other  Avords,  it  is  limited  by 
human  receptivity,  by  the  powers  and  faculties  of 
human  nature;  nay  more,  by  the  powers  and  faculties 
of  the  particular  person  to  whom,  at  any  particular 
time  and  in  any  particular  j)lace,  it  was  supposed  to  be 
actually  imparted.  Not  only  was  it  impossible  to 
reveal  to  S.  .John  everything  that  God  Himself  knows. 


28  REVELATION  OF  GOD  IN  JESUS  CflRIST. 

but  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  reveal  to  Moses 
everything  which  was  actually  revealed  to  S.  John. 
And  it  has  sometimes  been  seriously  argued  that  this 
fact  renders  any  genuine  and  authoritative  revelation 
wholly  impossible.  The  object  of  a  revelation  is  to 
give  us  accurate  knowledge  of  the  very  truth  concern- 
ing God  and  ourselves.  But  this,  it  is  urged,  is  im- 
possible because  of  the  limitation  of  the  human 
faculties  themselves,  and  much  more  impossible 
because  of  the  special  limitation  of  the  faculties  of  any 
particular  person.  Every  rational  theology  recognizes 
that  God,  in  His  very  nature  and  in  all  His  attributes, 
infinitely  surpasses  not  only  any  one  prophet,  but  the 
whole  human  race.  No  multiplication  of  the  finite 
can  produce  the  infinite ;  and  not  only  our  actual,  but 
any  possible,  knowledge  must  fall  so  far  short  of  the 
truth  concerning  God  that  our  most  careful  and 
reverent  utterances  can  be  little  less  (except,  indeed, 
in  intention)  than  an  awful  blasphemy.  This  is 
scarcely  a  caricature  of  the  argument  of  Dean  Mansel's 
celebrated  Bampton  Lectiwes.  But  surely  it  implies 
that  we  cannot  Icnoio  anything  of  any  object  unless  we 
can  know  it  wliolly ;  and,  unless  we  are  to  change  the 
meaning  of  the  commonest  words  of  every  language,  so 
strange  an  assumption  needs  no  more  for  its  refutation 
than  to  be  clearly  statetl.  The  words  equivalent  to 
/  hnoio  are  to  be  found  in  all  languages,  and  they 
certainly  have  some  meaning.  They  cannot  possibly 
be  equivalent  to  the  words  /  do  not  knoiu.  But  what 
single  object  is  there  which  we  know  wliolJy?  If  we 
are  once  out  of  our  depth,  we  can  be  drowned  as  easily 
with  three  feet  of  water  below  our  feet  as  if  we  were 
sinking  into  an  unfathomable  abyss. 


KEVELATION  OF  GOD   IN  JESUS  CHRIST.  29 

And  if  we  affirm  tliat  we  can  know  notliing  nnless 
we  know  it  wholly,  when  are  we  not  ont  of  our  depth  ? 
We  need  not  begin  with  the  mysteries  of  theology:  let 
us  take  a  common  pebble^  lying  by  mere  chance  on  a 
smooth  pavement.  All  sorts  of  people  may  come  into 
contact  with  this  little  pebble,  and  will  say  they 
"  know  "  it ;  and  their  words  will  convey  a  sufficiently 
definite  and  accurate  meaning  to  those  to  whom  they 
speak.  A  delicate  lady  will  say,  "  This  pebble  hurt  my 
foot."  A  mischievous  schoolboy  will  rejoice  in  the 
pebble  as  a  convenient  missile  for  breaking  the  window 
of  an  unoffending  neighbour.  A  lapidary  will  observe 
that  it  is  capable  of  a  high  polish,  and  may  be  used  for 
what  people  call  "jewelry."  A  chemist  will  analyze 
it,  and  tell  us  of  what  elements  it  is  composed,  and 
how  they  are  combined.  A  geologist  will  look  at  it, 
and  it  will  reveal  to  him  the  history  of  countless 
millenniums :  intense  heat,  enormous  pressure,  volcanic 
action,  the  grinding  of  icebergs,  the  washings  of  long- 
vanished  seas.  But  if  the  little  pebble  itself  could 
speak  and  tell  its  own  history,  what  mere  foolishness 
all  our  wisest  "  historical  fictions "  about  it  would 
seem !  But  lioiu  would  they  seem  foolish  ?  They 
would  seem  foolish  only  if  we  had  offered  them  as  a 
complete  and  exhaustive  account  of  the  pebble.  We 
do  not  so  offer  them  ;  and  meanwhile  it  is  true  that  the 
lady  knew  that  the  pebble  hurt  her  foot ;  the  lapidary 
that  he  polished  it ;  the  chemist  that  he  analyzed  it ; 
the  geologist  that  he  constructed  its  hypothetical  and, 
in  a  degree,  its  certain  history.  If  we  do  not  suffi- 
ciently, and  for  all  practical  purposes,  know  a  little 
round  pebble,  we  know  nothing  whatever. 

But  do  we  knoiv  our  fellow-creatures  ?    Do  we  know 


30  REVELATION  OF  GOD  IN  JESUS  CHRIST. 

our  next-door  neighbour?  Do  we  know  our  father 
and  mother,  our  brothers  and  sisters  ?  Is  there  a 
single  human  being  who  woukl  besitate  to  answer 
these  questions  with  an  emphatic  yes?  But  do  we 
know  any  one  of  these  wliolly  1  If  we  cannot  wlioUy 
know  a  mere  pebble,  how  much  less  can  we  know  a 
human  being!  We  do  not  wholly  know  ourselves. 
For  the  most  part  we  do  not  care  for  self-knowledge. 

But  often,  in  the  world's  most  crowded  streets, 

But  often,  in  the  din  of  strife. 

There  rises  an  unspeakable  desire 

After  tlie  knowledge  of  our  buried  life  ; 

A  thirst  to  spend  our  fire  and  restless  force 

In  tracking  out  our  true,  original  course  ; 

A  longing  to  inquire 

Into  the  mystery  of  this  heart  which  beats 

So  wild,  so  deep  in  us— to  know 

Whence  our  thoughts  come  and  where  they  go. 

And  many  a  man  in  his  own  breast  then  delves. 

But  deep  enough,  alas  !  none  ever  mines. 

And  we  have  been  on  many  thousand  lines, 

And  we  have  shown,  on  each,  spirit  and  power, 

But  hardly  have  we,  for  one  little  hour. 

Been  on  our  own  line,  have  we  been  ourselves — 

Hardly  had  skill  to  utter  one  of  all 

The  nameless  feelings  that  course  through  our  breast, 

But  they  course  on  forever  unexpress'd. 

And  long  we  try  in  vain  to  speak  and  act 

Our  hidden  self,  and  wliat  we  say  and  do 

Is  eloquent,  is  well — but  'tis  not  true  ! 

And  then  we  will  no  more  be  rack'd 

With  inward  striving,  and  demand 

Of  all  the  thousand  nothings  of  the  hour 

Their  stupefying  power  ; 

Ah,  yes  ;  and  they  benumb  us  at  our  call ! 

Yet  still,  from  time  to  time,  vague  and  forlorn, 

From  the  soul's  subterranean  depth  uj^borne. 


REVELATION  OF  GOD  IN  JESUS  CHRIST.  31 

As  from  an  infinitely  distant  land, 

Come  airs,  and  floating  echoes,  and  convey 

A  melancholy  into  all  oui-  day.* 

And  if  we  scarcely  know,  and  only  fitfully  try  to 
know,  our  own  selves,  how  much  less  do  we  wholly 
know  our  neighbour,  our  most  intimate  and  dearest 
friend  !  Am  I,  then,  going  beyond  my  depth  when  I 
say  that  my  next-door  neighbour  is  John  Smith  ;  that 
he  has  fair  hair  and  blue  eyes ;  that  he  is  a  physician ; 
that  he  is  clever  and  benevolent;  and  when  I  affirm  an 
indefinite  number  of  other  similar  truths?  Are  not 
these  truths  at  all,  because  they  do  not  sound  the 
depths  of  Smith's  personality,  and  affirm  more  of  him 
than  he  knows  of  himself? 

The  revelation  of  God,  then,  may  be  true  and  of  the 
utmost  practical  value,  even  though  it  does  not,  and 
never  can,  surpass  the  capacity  of  human  nature  to 
receive  it.  At  the  same  time  the  ordinary  instruments 
of  divine  revelation  have  been  so  imperfect,  even  at  the 
best,  that  their  very  imperfection  suggested  the  need 
and  inspired  the  hope  that,  some  time  or  otlier,  God 
would  provide  a  true  and  perfect  prophet.  The 
prophets  of  Israel  were  men  of  very  limited  knowledge, 
and  entrusted  severally  with  but  a  very  small  part  of 
that  truth  which  is  necessary  to  human  perfection. 
The  institutions  in  which  their  revelations  were  en- 
shrined, and  by  means  of  which  they  were  protected 
and  disseminated,  were  rigid  and  unyielding.  Exactly 
because  they  were  so  admirably  adapted  to  preserve  the 
old,  they  became  more  and  more  incapable  of  making- 
room  for  the  new;  at  last  they  became  exclusive  and 
antagonistic.    Moreover,  the  human  frailty  of  prophets, 

*  Matthew  Arnold :  Tlte  Buried  Life. 


32  KEVELATION  OF  GOD  IN  JESUS  CHKIST. 

mid  priests,  unci  kings,  seems  often  to  contradict  the 
very  truth  which  tliey  were  called  by  God  to  proclaim 
and  to  administer.     Moses  "spake  unadvisedly  with 
his  lips."     Aaron  made  the  golden  calf.     David  found 
in  his  own  life  material  only  too  ample  for  his  peni- 
tential Psalms.     Solomon  "loved  many  strange  Avomen, 
and  when  he  was  old  his  wives  turned  away  his  heart 
after  other  gods."    Jonah  did  liis  best  to  defeat  the 
purpose  of  divine  mercy  which  he  was  commissioned  to 
execute.     The  very  priests  desecrated  the  temple  and 
set  at  naught  the  law.    It  is  indeed  by  the  very  revela- 
tions they  received  and  recorded  that  their  own  conduct 
is  condemned ;  but  their  contemporaries  were  at  least 
as  familiar  with  their  life  as  with  their  message,  and 
were  only  too  likely  to  corrupt  the  one  by  the  impurity 
of  the  other.     The  object  of  revelation  is  twofold  :  to 
declare  what  God  is,  and  what  man  ought  to  be.     The 
first  of  these  objects  was  far  too  great  for  the  knowledge 
of  the  prophets  of  Israel,  the  second  was  far  too  great 
for  their  virtue.     Nor  did  the  long  history  of  human 
thought  and  human  life,  whether  witliin  or  beyond  the 
limits  of  the  chosen   people,  encourage  the  faintest 
reasonable  hope  that  there  would  ever  appear  among 
men  a  prophet  either  wise  enough  or  good  enough  to 
be  the  perfect  medium  of  a  perfect  revelation. 

Tlierefore,  God,  having  of  old  time  sjwken  unto  the 
fathers  in  the  proj^hets  by  divers  ^mi  ions  and  in  divers 
7nanners,  hath  at  the  end  of  these  days  sjMkemmto  us  in 
His  Son  ....  the  effulgence  of  Bis  glory,  and  the 
very  image  of  Jlis  Substance.  Any  revelation  of  God 
to  man  must  be  brought  within  the  limits  of  human 
nature  and  human  capacity  to  receive  it ;  but  within 
those  limits  it  must  be  perfect  if  it  is  effectually  to 


REVELATION   OF  GOD  IN   JESUS  CHRIST.  33 

make  known  to  ns  both  what  God  is  and  what  man 
ought  to  be.  The  Incarnation,  considered  merely  as  a 
revelation,  satisfies  both  these  conditions. 

Viewed,  then,  solely  as  a  revelation,  what  does  the 
Incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God  include  ?  It  includes 
at  least  this:  that,  in  order  that  we  might  know  God, 
and  our  relations  to  Him,  and  all  that  can  be  necessary 
for  our  spiritual  perfection,  the  Eternal  Son  Himself 
came  to  teach  us  ;  to  speak  to  us  in  our  own  language, 
by  a  perfect  human  life,  by  means  of  facts  and  analogies 
which  are  on  the  level  of  our  own  experience.  Even 
the  miracles  of  Christ  were  within  human  experience : 
people  did  actually  eat  of  the  multiplied  loaves,  were 
personally  conscious  that  they  had  ceased  to  be  blind, 
showed  "themselves  to  the  priest"  after  they  were 
cleansed  from  leprosy,  unwound  the  grave-clothes 
from  a  risen  brother.  And  as  a  teacher  our  Lord  at 
least  claimed  a  perfect  and  personal  knowledge  of 
what  He  taught ;  and  also  that  to  teach  the  truth  was 
a  large  part  of  the  work  which  He  came  from  the 
Father  to  do. 

The  comprehension  of  the  mystery  of  the  Incarnation 
— that  is  to  say,  the  accurate  knowledge  of  the  ivlioh  of 
it — including,  as  it  does,  the  yet  deeper  mystery  of  the 
Holy  Trinity,  is  very  far  beyond  the  reach  of  the  human 
faculties.  But  that  2ia'rt  of  the  perfect  truth  which  it 
is  practically  necessary  for  us  to  know  is  within  our 
reach  :  millions  of  human  beings  have  actually  known 
it  and  lived  by  it;  and  the  fact  that  they  could  live  by 
it,  that  it  satisfied  their  wants,  that  it  fitted  in  with 
everything  else  of  which  they  had  the  most  irresistible 
certainty,  that  it  harmonized  what  otherwise  would 
have  been  irreconcilable  contradictions,  that  it  made 


34  EEVELATION  OF  GOD  IN  JESUS   CHRIST. 

those  who  believed  it  morally  and  spiritually  nobler,  that 
it  gave  them  more  reverence  for  truth  and  a  keener 
sense  of  responsibility,  that  it  at  once  ennobled  and 
humbled  them — all  this  enabled,  or  even  compelled, 
them  to  believe  that  Avhat  they  could  not  understand, 
what  grew  fainter  and  fainter  as  they  strained  their 
eager  gaze  towards  the  ever-receding  horizon  till  it  was 
lost  in  an  intolerable  brightness,  was  real  and  sub- 
stantial. But,  as  I  said  before,  when  once  we  are 
beyond  our  depth,  it  matters  little  how  deep  may  be 
the  abyss  beneath  us;  and  it  is  worth  while  to  remember 
that  the  mystery  of  creation  is  as  far  beyond  our  perfect 
comprehension  as  the  mystery  of  the  Incarnation. 

Whenever  Ave  indulge  in  speculation  without  pro- 
tecting ourselves  by  the  verification  of  facts  and  experi- 
ence, we  almost  invariably  discover  that  we  have  proved, 
beyond  possibility  of  doubt,  the  inconceivableness  of 
something  which  the  very  next  minute  we  find  before 
our  very  eyes.  A  man  crosses  the  street  at  some  par- 
ticular time  and  place.  The  chances  against  the 
probability  that  he  should  have  crossed  exactly  then 
and  there  are  millions  to  one.  We  argue  the  matter 
out  in  our  minds.  We  feel  sure  that  he  must  have 
crossed,  if  at  all,  a  little  higher  up  or  a  few  minutes 
sooner.  But  lo!  there  he  is:  not  taking  the  nearest 
way,  nor  attending  to  his  business  with  the  utmost 
possible  expedition,  but  simply  baffling  our  calculations 
by  an  absurd  wilfulness.  If  we  argue  simply  from  the 
"Idea"  of  God,  we  should  conclude  with  irresistible 
certainty  that  He  neither  could  nor  would  bring  into 
existence  a  single  crealure.  For,  indeed,  why  should 
He  create  ?  He  is  already  in  perfect  blessedness ;  no 
increase  can  come  to   His  infinite  joy;   He  cannot 


REVELATION   OF  GOD  IN  JESUS  CHRIST.  35 

become  wiser  than  He  is  so  as  to  amend  the  conditions, 
if  we  may  so  speak,  in  which  He  is  placed.  Nay,  there 
are  no  such  conditions,  and  unless  He  shall  have 
changed,  ihey  cannot  become  desirable.  Before  creation 
there  exists  nothingo?f/sic/e  Himself  which  could  change 
His  purpose  or  constitute  a  motive  to  action  ;  and, 
being  already  perfect,  any  change  tvithin  Himself  must 
be  a  change  for  the  worse,  which  the  very  "  Idea "  of 
God  excludes.  Clearly  enough,  then,  creation  is 
impossible,  a  "  contradiction  in  terms,"  excluded  by 
the  very  "  Idea"  of  God.  So  much  for  our  speculation  : 
then  we  bethink  ourselves  that  we  are  speculating ; 
that  we  are  not  God  ;  that  we  have  aciiiaUy  been  brought 
into  existence;  that  the  fact  that  we  ourselves  are 
speculating  about  the  possibility  of  creation  absolutely 
disproves  the  conclusion  at  which  we  have  so  logically 
arrived. 

Or  we  might  approach  the  matter  from  another  side 
— if  it  be  another.  How,  we  might  ask,  can  the 
Almighty  God  limit  in  any  way  His  power  ?  Being, 
in  His  very  nature  and  essence,  omnipotent,  how  can 
He  become  weak?  If  we  could  discover  any  other 
existing  object  which  could  put  Him  to  a  choice 
between  two  alternatives,  and  compel  Him  to  accept 
either  the  one  or  the  other,  He  would  be  no  longer 
God.  Can  anything  be  more  obvious,  so  long  as  we 
remain  in  the  region  of  mere  speculation  ?  But  some- 
thing hurts  our  foot,  and  we  pick  up  a  little  pebble. 
It  is  plainly  enough  hard,  impenetrable :  it  will  not 
suffer  our  foot  to  occupy  the  same  space  which  itself 
occupies.  If  it  were  endowed  with  an  irreverent  reason, 
it  might  say  even  to  the  Almighty,  "I  compel  You  to 
choose  between  these  alternatives;  You  must  annihilate 


36  REVELATION  OF  GOD  IN  JESUS   CHRIST. 

me,  or  I  will  hurt  the  foot  of  everybody  who  treads 
upon  nie."  So  we  are  landed  in  the  absnrdity  of 
believing  that  every  exercise  of  power  is  a  positive  proof 
that  the  poioer  has  no  existence. 

Of  course  yon  see  that  I  am  not  attempting  to  prove 
the  Incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God ;  neither  am  I 
attempting  to  prove  the  existence  of  myself,  or  of  a 
pebble.  If  there  be  any  fact  of  history  of  which  we 
may  be  rationally  certain,  such  a  fact  is  the  life,  and 
death,  and  resurrection,  the  claims  and  teaching,  of 
Jesus  Christ.  It  is  as  idle  to  argue  against  the  possi- 
bility of  His  having  ever  lived  as  to  argue  against  the 
Gallic  Wars  of  Ca?sar.  To  account  for  the  words  and 
works  of  Jesus  on  the  hypothesis  that  He  was  a  good 
man,  like  S.  John  or  Buddha,  is  a  kind  of  insult  to  the 
human  understanding.  Claiming  what  He  did  claim, 
He  cannot  have  been  a  good  man  unless  He  were 
infinitely  more.  That  in  Him  human  nature  came  to 
"  its  perfect  bloom,"  is  a  horticultural  metaphor  which 
may  be  safely  regarded  as  too  contemptible  for  grave 
argument.  Every  florist  knows  that  "  the  perfect 
bloom  "  of  to-day  may  be  little  better  than  the  wild- 
flower  of  the  very  next  season ;  and  we  have  not  yet 
seen  any  improvement  upon  either  the  life  or  the 
teaching  of  Him  who  declared  that  He  was  the  very 
Son  of  God.  But  what  I  want  to  urge  upon  you  is, 
that  the  argument  against  the  Incarnation  founded 
upon  the  supposed  fact  that  it  would  be  a  limiting  of 
the  Divine  Nature,  must  remain  forever  irrelevant  so 
long  as  there  is  a  single  pebble  that  can  hurt  your 
foot.  There  is  nothing  illimitable  but  nonentity.  We 
cannot  divest  ourselves  of  the  knowledge  of  God  by 
juggling  with  such  words  as  "  infinite"  and  "  absolute." 


REVELATION   OF  GOD   IN  JESUS   CIIKIST.  37 

Whether  He  is  able  and  willing  to  create  a  world,  is 
determined  at  once  by  the  undeniable  fact  that  here 
the  world  verily  is.  And  if  what  we  call  the  Divine 
Perfection  renders  it  impossible  for  God  to  act,  or 
even — for  so  far  the  argument  would  carry  us — to  be 
conscious  of  His  own  existence,  then  it  folloAvs,  not  that 
we  must  regard  Nature  and  our  very  selves  as  mere 
illusions,  but  that  we  must  put  a  new  meaning  into 
the  word  "  perfection."  In  truth,  we  must  rescue  the 
word  from  mere  logical  wrangling  and  recover  for  it 
its  homely  and  obvious  significance. 

And,  similarly,  when  we  consider  the  Incarnation 
merely  as  a  revelation,  that  revelation,  let  it  amount  to 
what  it  will,  is  at  the  least  an  undeniable  fact.  Jesus 
Christ,  both  by  word  and  deed,  has,  beyond  all  dispute, 
taught  men  something  concerning  God.  And  what  He 
has  taught  us  at  once  preserves  and  completes  all  pre- 
vious teaching.  It  appeals  at  once  to  the  primary 
revelation  in  conscience,  verifies  that  revelation, 
expands  it,  perfects  it.  Though  so  vastly  higher  and 
deeper,  it  is  yet  in  such  manifest  harmony  with  the 
message  of  the  prophets  of  Israel,  and  the  institutions 
by  which  the  truth  they  delivered  was  preserved,  that 
it  has  been  seriously  argued  that  it  is  no  more  than 
their  natural  outgrowth.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
itself  so  unapproachable  in  fulness,  and  beauty,  and 
applicability  to  all  human  conditions — so  absolutely 
unblemished  by  any  moral  or  spiritual  infirmity  or 
evil  in  the  Teacher  Himself — that  the  whole  of  it  was 
never  anticipated  even  by  all  previous  teachers  i)ut 
together;  and  has  never  been  even  improved,  niucJj 
less  superseded,  by  nearly  twenty  centuries  of  human 
progress.    A  natural  outgrowth  is  part  of  a  continuous 


38  KEVELATION   OF  GOD  IN   JESUS  CHKIST. 

process ;  it  may  be  in  advance  of  the  past,  but  it  will 
be  in  the  rear  of  the  future.  Nor  will  it  be  contended 
that  there  lias  been  any  arrest  of  human  progress  in 
any  other  department  of  thought  or  work.  This  is, 
indeed,  our  loudest  boast :  "  Westward — ho !"  Ever 
onwards.  The  goal  of  to-day  the  starting-point  of  to- 
morrow. Always  some  fresh  discovery,  some  new 
invention,  till  we  are  rendered  almost  incapable  of 
wonder  and  beyond  surprise.  Vast  accumulations  of 
facts  unsuspected  for  millenniums,  and  the  scientific 
arrangement  of  these  facts,  and  the  deduction  of  their 
"  laws."  How,  then,  does  it  happen  that  no  new  and 
greater  teacher  has  arisen,  in  this  continuous  process 
of  natural  evolution,  not  only  to  eclipse  but  even  to 
dim  the  exceeding  brightness  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  ? 
He  still  remains  the  Master.  Theology  is  a  mere  com- 
mentary on  His  teaching ;  and,  invaluable  though  it 
be,  it  is  so  far  from  improving  the  text  that  its  remote 
inferences  and  subtle  dogmas  have  to  be  continually 
verified  or  corrected  by  the  "  simplicity  that  is  in 
Christ."  They  who,  rightly  or  wrongly,  affirm  that 
even  the  Church  is  corrupt,  and  that  the  doctrines  of 
modern  Christendom  are  unbelievable,  offer  no  new 
revelation,  no  original  speculations.  Tiiey  think  they 
have  almost  proved  their  case  by  putting  it  into  the 
shape  of  a  sarcastic  question:  "Was  Christ  a  Chris- 
tian'^" Offer  what  explanation  we  can  or  will,  this 
great  Teacher,  who  declares  Himself  the  Son  of  God, 
is,  on  all  hands,  admitted  to  be  to  this  day  unap- 
proachable in  His  perfection  as  the  Revealer  of  God  and 
the  Guide  of  human  life.  The  explanation  of  the 
writer  of  the  EimtJe  to  the  Hebrews  has  at  least  this 
merit — that,   if   it  be  true,   it  does    most  assuredly 


REVELATION   OF  GOD  IN  JESUS  CHRIST.  39 

explain.  The  Great  Eevealer  has  no  superior  and  no 
fellow,  because  "  He  is  the  effulgence  of  God's  glory 
and  the  express  image  of  His  substance." 

If  U  be  true!  My  dear  brethren,  in  these  sad  days, 
when  the  air  is  heavy  with  the  narcotic  vapours  of 
doubt;  when  clamorous  denial  well-nigh  deafens  us; 
when  so  much  even  of  what  seems  to  be  intended  for 
Christian  teaching  is  made  up  of  timid  apologies  and 
a  minimizing  theology ;  when,  instead  of  the  Christ  of 
history,  we  are  asked  to  believe  in  an  imaginary  Christ, 
whose  life  is  constructed  out  of  ingenious  selections 
from  the  Four  Gospels  accommodated  to  "modern 
thought " — it  seems  to  me  that  it  is  one  of  our  most 
obvious  and  peremptory  duties,  and  also  one  of  our 
highest  privileges,  to  testify  in  plain  words  that  cannot 
possibly  admit  of  being  misunderstood,  what  we  do  verily 
believe.  I  could  not  dare  to  judge  others,  but  for  my 
own  part — remembering  the  controversies  out  of  which 
it  arose  and  which  it  was  meant  to  settle — I  cannot  see 
that  it  would  be  possible  for  me  to  recite  the  Nicene 
Creed  without  believing  that  the  words  of  tlie  author 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  are  true,  and  that  the 
Great  Eevealer  is  in  very  fact  "the  effulgence  of  God's 
glory  and  the  express  image  of  His  substance."  I  do 
verily  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  was  not  a  Son  of  God, 
but  the  "  Only-begotten,  begotten  of  Ilis  Father  before 
all  worlds."  I  believe,  not  that  He  is  "the  perfect 
blossoming  of  humanity,"  but  that  He  is  "  of  one 
substance  with  the  Father."  I  believe  that  He  was 
not  the  product  of  a  continuous  process  of  natural 
evolution,  but  that  by  Him  "all  things  were  made"; 
and  that  He  is  the  Creator  and  not  the  creature  of 
human  development.     I  believe  that  when  we  hear 


40  REVELATION  OF  GOD  IN  JESUS  CHRIST. 

Him  we  hear  the  Father,  and  that  He  speaks  with 
authority,  not  only  as  Moses  might  have  delivered  with 
authority  a  message  from  Jehovah,  but  because  He  and 
the  Father  are  One,  and  that "  as  the  Father  knows  Him, 
even  so  knows  He  the  Father."  And,  in  these  days, 
Ave  must  not  be  afraid  even  of  egotism.  There  is  a 
great  fear  among  Christian  people.  They  have  been  so 
often  assured  that  their  teachers  do  not  really  believe 
the  Creeds,  that  they  are  half  inclined  sorrowfully  to 
admit  it.  To  those  who  are  confused  and  bewildered 
even  the  mere  confession  of  our  own  faith  may  be 
reassuring.  A  man  may  still  believe  in  Jesus  Christ, 
may  believe  that  He  is  "  God  manifest  in  the  flesh," 
though  he  is  by  no  means  unfamiliar  with  the  literature 
of  modern  scepticism.  He  may  believe  all  the  more 
confidently  because  he  is  familiar  with  that  literature. 
And  if  we  do  heartily  believe  what  our  Lord  so  con- 
tinually, and  in  so  many  ways,  affirmed  of  Himself, 
then  we  can  account  for  the  fulness,  the  penetrating 
power,  the  easy  familiarity  with  the  subject — if  we 
may  reverently  so  speak — of  His  revelation.  Others 
speak  of  God  as  they  have  heard  ;  each  delivering  his 
own  precious  but  imperfect  message,  often  scarcely 
himself  perceiving  its  real  significance.  Christ  speaks 
as  One  who  was  Himself  "  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father," 
as  One  in  whom  the  mysteries  even  of  the  Divine 
Nature  were  the  mysteries  of  His  own  life.  Others 
spe;ik  of  man  as  they  may  be  inspired  to  deal  with  some 
particular  case,  some  pressing  emergency ;  Christ 
speaks  as  One  who  "knew  what  was  in  man,"  because 
He  Himself  had  made  him.  He  could  be  the  perfect 
"Light"  because  He  was  the  "Life"  of  men.  And 
the  revelation  in  Christ  has  stood  the  test  of  innu- 


REVELATION   OF  GOD  IN  JKSUS  CHRIST.  41 

merable  verifications.  Every  fresh  trial  has  confirmed 
it.  From  every  believer  has  come  the  grateful,  humble, 
fervent  confession:  "I  have  heard  Him  myself;  I 
have  proved,  in  my  inmost  heart  and  experience,  that 
He  is  '  the  Way  and  the  Truth  and  the  Life ' ;  1  have, 
in  plain  fact,  'conic  to  the  Father  by  Him.''  " 


REVELATION  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH. 

Let  a  man  so  account  of  us  as  of  ministers  of  Christ,  ajid 
stewards  of  the  mysteries  of  God.  Here,  moreover,  it  is  required 
in  stewards,  that  they  be  found  faithful. — I  Corinthians  iv. 
1-2. 

Every  consideration  which  encourages  ns  to  hope, 
or  even  compels  ns  to  believe,  that  God  will  reveal  to 
us  His  will  for  the  guidance  of  our  conduct,  or  will 
reveal  to  us  otherwise  undiscoverable  truth  for  the 
satisfaction  of  our  intellect,  renders  us  in  an  equal 
degree  impatient  of  delay,  of  the  slow  progress  of 
those  revelations  which  have  actually  been  granted  to 
us.  We  say  to  ourselves :  "  If  revelation  be  necessary  at 
all,  why  is  it  not  given  at  once,  in  all  its  fulness;  and 
why  is  it  not  given  to  everybody  ?  Why  should  not 
all  the  Lord's  people  be  prophets  ?  Why  should  there 
be  a  'chosen  people'?  Why  should  'the  fulness  of 
the  times '  come  only  after  countless  millions  of  human 
beings  have  passed  beyond  the  reach  of  those  blessings 
which  had  been  so  long  deferred  ?  Either  revelation 
must  have  been  given  at  first,  and  then  given  fully,  or 
our  hope  that  it  will  be  given  at  all  can  be  nothing 
better  than  a  dream." 

But,  first  of  all,  how  do  we  know  that  those  who 
died  before  the  Incarnation  have  passed  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  blessings  which  the  Incarnation,  regarded 
even  merely  as  a  revelation,  lias  brought  to  ourselves  ? 
Do  we  seriously  believe  that  death  is  annihilation ;  or 


REVELATION  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  43 

that  the  departed,  in  some  other  world,  are  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  divine  discipline,  and  instruction,  and 
love  ?  It  was  no  sin  to  be  ignorant  of  what  it  was 
impossible  to  know.  The  smallest  insect  may  be  per- 
fect in  its  kind ;  and  those  who  have  put  their  trust  in 
God,  and  tried  to  serve  and  please  Him,  though  they 
had  no  knowledge  or  even  vague  anticipation  of  what 
has  been  fully  revealed  to  us,  may  have  been  men  "  after 
God's  own  heart."  And  if  they  live  at  all  after  that 
event  in  their  lives  which  we  call  dying,  why  should 
they  not  have  continued  to  receive,  and  perhaps  in 
more  favourable  circumstances,  precisely  the  same 
revelations  which,  "in  many  parts  and  in  many  ways," 
have  been  granted  to  those  who,  in  this  earthly  life, 
came  after  them?  Indeed,  what  Christian  man  or 
woman  who  died  yesterday  had  availed  himself  of  all 
the  knowledge,  or  attained  to  all  the  perfection,  of 
which  his  privileges  had  rendered  him  capable?  There 
are  millions  of  Christians  who  can  neither  read  nor 
write  ;  millions  whose  worship  is  what  we  call  super- 
stitious ;  millions  whose  life  on  earth  rendered  them 
neither  "fit  for  heaven"  nor  "fit  for  hell."  Would  it 
not  be  comfortiug  to  believe  that  the  state  of  human 
beings  after  death  may  secure  the  instruction  of  the 
ignorant,  the  purification  and  strengthening  of  the 
frail  and  imperfect?  And  if  they  all  "live  in  God," 
and  are  still  in  His  holy  keeping,  why  need  we  doubt 
that  "  what  they  knew  not "  when  in  this  world  "they 
shall  know  hereafter";  and  that,  in  the  higher  school, 
God  will  "  teach  them  "  to  more  complete  "  profit "  ? 

But,  as  to  the  slow  progress  of  revelation,  we  must 
check  and  verify  our  speculations  at  every  turn  by 
observation  and  fact.    The  divine  revelations  have  ieen 


44  REVELATION   IN  THE  CIIKISTIAN  CHURCH. 

gradual  and  slow,  whether  we  like  it  or  not,  whether 
Ave  should  have  expected  it  or  not.  And  I  wish  to 
remind  you  that  you  ought  to  have  expected  nothing 
else.  To  speculate  upon  what  God  might  have  done, 
or  ought  to  have  done,  or  must  have  done,  is  at  once 
idle  and  irreverent;  it  assumes  that  we  are  wiser  than 
God  ;  it  is  a  matter  wholly  beyond  our  depth.  But  to 
ascertain,  so  far  as  it  is  needful  for  us  to  know  it,  what 
God  actually  has  done  is  quite  within  our  reach. 
Moreover,  the  study  of  the  works  o^  God,  and  of  the 
method  of  His  working,  is  in  the  highest  degree  inter- 
esting and  instructive.  And  the  result  at  which  we 
arrive,  from  whatever  point  we  start,  and  whatever 
lines  we  traverse,  is  precisely  this :  that,  measured  by 
our  standards  of  time,  almost  everything  that  God  has 
done  has  been  done  slowly.  He  has  chosen  to  act  at 
first,  within  our  earthly  sphere,  by  His  creative  power, 
producing  the  materials  and  forces  with  which  we  are 
all  familiar ;  but  after  that  first  creative  act  He  has 
seen  fit  to  proceed  by  long-continued  evolution.  This 
is  affirmed  at  least  symbolically,  even  if  not  with 
scientific  accuracy,  in  the  account  of  "  the  Creation  " 
in  the  Book  Genesis. 

We  know  the  earth-^s  it  is  now.  It  is  precisely  not 
what  the  morbid  Hamlet  had  come  to  consider  it:  "I 
have  of  late — but  wherefore  I  know  not — lost  all  my 
mirth,  foregone  all  custom  of  exercises  ;  and,  indeed, 
it  goes  so  heavily  with  my  disposition,  that  this  goodly 
frame,  the  earth,  seems  to  me  a  sterile  promontory ; 
this  most  excellent  canopy,  the  air,  look  you,  this  brave 
o'erhanging  firmament,  this  majestical  roof  fretted  with 
golden  fire — why,  it  appears  no  other  thing  to  me  than 
a  foul  and  pestilent  congregation  of  vapours.     What  a 


REVELATION  IN  THE  CHKISTIAN  OIIDRCH.  45 

piece  of  work  is  man !  how  noble  in  reason !  how  in- 
finite in  faculties !  in  form  and  moving  how  express 
and  admirable!  in  action  how  like  an  angel!  in  appre- 
hension how  like  a  god !  the  beanty  of  the  world !  the 
paragon  of  animals !  And  yet,  to  me,  what  is  this 
quintessence  of  dust  ?  Man  delights  not  me ;  no,  nor 
woman  neither."  The  earth  is  rich  with  inexhaustible 
treasures.  God  seems  to  have  lavished  upon  it,  with  a 
sort  of  divine  prodigality,  every  kind  of  beauty  and 
loveliness:  the  sublimity  of  mountains  and  ocean; 
the  quiet  loveliness  of  peaceful  valleys  and  rippling 
streams;  the  song  and  plumage  of  birds;  the  bright 
colours,  the  delicate  pencilling,  the  exquisite  fragrance 
of  flowers ;  the  abundance  of  life  in  laud  and  water, 
with  man  "the  roof  and  crown  of  things,"  in  the  very 
"image  of  God."  This  is  the  world  as  we  know  it 
now.  But  is  this  the  world  as  it  came  forth  "  from 
the  hand  of  the  Creator"  ?  We  need  not  ask  Science : 
we  may  ask  the  Book  Genesis  ;  and  we  find  that  it  was 
only  by  slow  degrees — we  know  not,  indeed,  how  slow 
— that  this  glorious  world  came  to  be  what  now  it  is. 
It  was  not,  at  first,  so  much  as  "a  sterile  promontory"; 
there  was  no  "  majestical  roof  fretted  with  golden  fire  "; 
likely  enough  what  is  now  so  solid  was  really  "  a  foul  and 
pestilent  congregation  of  vapours."  "  The  earth  was 
waste  and  void:  and  darkness  was  upon  the  face  of 
the  deep."  After  we  know  not  how  vast  an  interval  of 
time  the  awful  darkness  was  penetrated  by  light.  Then 
was  constructed  the  "  brave  o'erhanging  firmament"  ; 
land  appeared,  and  the  waters  were  "  gathered  together  " 
into  seas ;  sun,  moon  and  stars  shone  forth  on  high,  in 
their  orderly  movements  measuring  out  "  days  and 
years"  for  a  yet  unpeopled  earth;  grass,  and  herbs. 


46  REVELATION   IN  THE  CHEISTIAN    CHURCH. 

and  trees  adorn  wliat  once  was  "waste";  in  slow  grada- 
tions come  all  "kinds"  of  living  creatnres;  and  only 
after  a  patient  preparation,  whose  slowness  baffles  all 
the  efforts  of  the  most  vivid  imagination,  "  God  created 
man  in  His  own  image."  Nay,  even  the  body  of  mayi 
was  no  sudden  product  of  the  divine  power.  "  The 
Lord  God  formed  man  out  of  the  dust  of  the  ground." 
Previously  existing  elements  were  combined  with 
infinite  subtlety  to  form  that  marvellous  habitation 
in  which  our  spirits  dwell.  This  is  what  the  earliest 
Scriptures  tell  us,  in  their  symbolical  and  mystic 
fashion,  of  the  creation  of  the  world. 

And  what  we  see  in  the  creation  of  the  world  we  see 
in  every  part  of  the  divine  procedure  ;  in  the  progress 
to  maturity  of  each  individual,  and  in  what  we  call 
the  growth  of  civilization.  Physiologists  tell  us  that 
the  newborn  babe,  even  before  its  birth,  has  passed 
through  almost  every  gradation  of  animal  life;  and 
has  produced  on  an  infinitesimal  scale,  and  in  the  dark 
obscurity  of  its  ante-natal  existence,  a  minute  copy  of 
the  evolution  of  the  universe.  And  what  can  possibly 
be  more  utterly  helpless  than  a  newborn  babe?  A  day 
old,  nay,  a  year  old,  Caesar  and  Napoleon,  Plato  and 
Bacon,  Shakspeare  and  Milton,  were  more  absolutely 
dependent  upon  others,  more  incapable  even  of  self- 
preservation,  than  the  chick  just  hatched  or  the  cater- 
pillar just  emerged  from  a  butterfly's  egg.  And  the 
moral  difficulties  of  this  slow  progress  of  the  individual 
to  maturity  are  at  least  as  serious  as  the  moral  difficul- 
ties of  a  slowly  progressive  revelation.  If  all  the 
world  outside  Israel  was  left  without  the  guidance  of 
a  special  revelation ;  if  the  earliest  Israelites  had  far 
less  knowledge  of   God   than  the   contemporaries  of 


REVELATION  IN   THE  CHEISTIAN  CHURCH.  47 

Isaiah;  and  if  the  consequence  of  this  was  that  they 
fell  into  idolatry,  or  superstition,  or  vice— we  may 
marvel,  indeed,  that  this  should  be  consistent  with  the 
infinite  love  and  righteousness  of  God,  but  it  is  in  the 
strictest  accord  Avith  the  analogy  of  Nature  and  history 
and  individual  experience.  The  healthy  physical 
development  of  a  child  depends  almost  absolutely  upon 
the  skill  and  care  of  parents  or  nurses;  but  equally 
dependent,  often,  upon  the  most  ignorant  and  vicious  is 
the  child's  intellectual  and  moral  development.  Wh}/ 
are  many  of  our  criminals,  whom  Ave  see  for  the  first 
time  in  the  felon's  dock  or  in  the  cell  of  a  penitentiary, 
precisely  what  and  Avhere  they  are  ?  There  may  be 
deeper  reasons;  the  mystery  of  a  human  life  is  far  too 
complicated  for  any  of  us  to  solve;  but  o?ie  reason  is 
obvious  and  undeniable.  They  Avere  brought  up  to  be 
criminals ;  they  graduated  in  the  schools  and  univer- 
sities of  vice  ;  their  fathers  Avere  thieves,  their  mothers 
Avere  unchaste;  they  Avere  acquainted  from  their 
infancy  with  every  kind  of  fraud  and  brutal  violence; 
the  most  familiar  and  most  constantly  repeated  Avords 
of  the  vocabulary  Avhich  they  Avere  taught  were  oaths 
and  curses.  Why  is  a  man  a  heathen,  a  "  Jcav,  Turk, 
infidel  or  heretic  "■?  Avhy  is  he  a  Roman  Catholic,  or  a 
Unitarian,  or  a  "particular  Baptist,"  or  a  Mormonite? 
In  the  immense  majority  of  cases,  because  he  Avas  so 
brought  up.  Why  do  we,  Avithout  hesitation,  "  promise 
and  voAv  three  things  in  the  name"  of  our  god- 
children ?  Because  Ave  knoAV  that,  if  Ave  only  take 
pains  to  produce  it,  Ave  can  as  safely  guarantee  for  them 
a  belief  of  the  Creed  and  a  Christian  mode  of  living, 
as  Ave  can  guarantee  for  them  a  belief  in  the  multipli- 
cation table  and  a  civilized  mode  of  living.     And  even 


48  KEVELATiON   11?  THE  CHRISTIAN   CHURCH. 

at  the  very  best,  with  the  most  scrnpulons  care,  with 
the  wisest  training,  with  the  noblest  examples,  a  child 
must  pass  through  all  the  gradations  of  human  experi- 
ence. Only,  if  at  all,  through  the  innocence  of  ignor- 
ance; through  the  alarms,  the  bondage,  the  "curse"  of 
the  law ;  can  he  pass  into  "  the  glorious  liberty  "  of  a 
child  of  God.  As  in  our  physical  development  we 
have  been,  at  one  time  or  another,  almost  every  kind  of 
inferior  animal  before  we  became  man,  so  in  our 
spiritual  development  we  pass  through  the  religion  of 
Nature,  we  are  "  baptized  into  Moses,"  we  are  enlight- 
ened by  the  prophets,  before  we  can  come  into  the 
perfection  of  Christ. 

The  progress  of  nations  and  of  what  we  call  "  races  " 
— though  it  is  surely  not  irrelevant  to  ask  lioio  many 
human  races  there  can  possibly  be — is  even  slower,  and 
very  much  more  apparently  capricious,  than  the 
progress  of  individuals.  The  Hindoos,  Greeks,  Itomans, 
Germans,  belong  to  the  same  "  race  "  of  which  we  our- 
selves are  members  ;  we  all  speak  what  is  fundamentally 
the  same  language.  But  nothing  can  be  more  irregular 
than  the  development  of  these  various  branches  of  the 
same  stock.  The  characteristic  of  our  Eastern  kindred 
is  a  kind  of  apathy,  an  immovable  adherence  to  custom 
and  tradition,  a  dreamy  mysticism.  Their  very  heaven 
is  scarcely  distinguishable  from  annihilation.  Their 
utmost  blessedness  is  repose.  The  characteristic  of  West- 
ern civilization  is  what  we  call  progress — a  perpetual 
motion,  an  incurable  restlessness,  both  of  intellect  and 
life.  So  terrible  is  this  restlessness  that  our  modern 
and  Western  "civilization"  includes  the  negation  of 
civilization ;  on  the  side  of  practical  life,  anarchists 
and   nihilists;  on  the  side  of  speculation,  pessimists. 


KEVELATION  IN  THE   CHRISTIAN   CHURCH.  49 

atheists,  agnostics.  We  see  again  and  again,  both  in 
Europe  and  in  America,  reversions  to  barbarism,  and 
to  the  worst  kind  of  barbarism — barbarism  equipped 
with  the  armour  of  civilization.  It  is  idle  to  wonder 
how  this  can  be,  consistently  with  our  ideas  of  the 
love  and  righteousness  of  God.  In  plain  fact  it  is; 
and  if  it  be  inconsistent  with  our  ideas,  we  must  amend 
our  theories.  But  seeing  that  these  things  are  so,  we 
might  surely  have  expected  that  the  progress  of  reve- 
lation would  be  slow ;  and,  at  any  rate,  it  is  in  exact 
accord  with  every  part  of  the  divine  procedure  with 
which  we  can  possibly  be  acquainted.  An  instanta- 
neous and  perfect  revelation  would  have  been  little 
less  than  a  reversal  of  the  divine  method  in  every  other 
department  of  God's  operations. 

But,  on  the  side  of  man,  it  would  have  been  impos- 
sible, unless  the  whole  order  of  Nature  had  been  actually 
reversed.  Not  even  the  Almighty,  we  may  say  with 
reverence,  could  teach  the  differential  and  integral 
calculus  to  a  baby,  without  first  performing  a  miracle 
upon  the  child,  and  giving  him  the  strength  and  sub- 
tlety of  an  adult  and  well-trained  intellect.  "To 
be"  and  "not  to  be"  is  impossible  even  to  thought. 
Mathematics,  moreover,  require  only  one  particular 
set  of  faculties,  and  there  have  been  many  great  mathe- 
maticians singularly  deficient  in  historical,  or  poetic, 
or  philosophical  insight ;  whereas  etliics  and  religion 
demand  the  utmost  effort  and  culture  of  the  whole 
man.  Hence,  man  and  the  course  of  his  development 
being  what  they  are,  revelation  must  liave  been  gradual. 
And  I  have  dwelt  thus  at  length  on  this  subject  because 
I  believe  that  the  gradual  progress  of  a  divine  revela- 
tion to  mankind  constitutes  the  chief  difficulty  which 


50  REVELATION  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH. 

renders  it  hard  for  many  thonghtful  people  to  believe 
that  it  has  ever  been  granted. 

I  reminded  you,  in  the  sermons  on  the  first  two 
Sundays  in  Advent,  that  the  revelation  actually  given 
to  us  was  given  through  the  lawgivers  and  prophets 
of  Israel;  was  preserved  in  written  records,  and  in 
social,  political  and  ecclesiastical  institutions ;  was 
perfected  in  the  Incarnation  of  tlie  Son  of  God.  But 
the  time  came  when  it  was  possible,  and  even  necessary, 
that  divine  truth  should  be  allowed  to  escape  from 
merely  national  and  local  restraints.  Greece  had  con- 
quered the  world  of  thought.  Rome  had  conquered 
the  world  of  politics  and  action.  One  after  another 
the  nations  of  the  earth  had  been  subdued.  Their 
religions  had  been  either  suppressed  or  sanctioned  ;  but 
it  was  plain  that  the  legions  which  had  overcome  their 
armies  had  also  vanquished  their  gods.  Out  of  all 
these  once  independent  peoples  there  had  come  that 
mighty  empire  which  the  New  Testament  writers  call 
"  the  whole  world."  It  was  now  necessary  that  reve- 
lation also  should  be  at  once  universal  and  yet  protected 
by  institutions  which  should  be  not  only  definite  and 
rigid,  but  at  the  same  time  adapted  to  "all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men."  The  "world"  of  Eome  required 
a  universal  religion  and  a  Catholic  Church.  Thus  the 
original  promise  to  Abraham  was  truly  fulfilled :  "  In 
thee  and  in  thy  Seed  shall  all  the  nations  of  the  earth 
be  blessed."  God  was  revealed  to  us  not  only  as  the 
God  of  Israel,  but  as  "our  Father  in  heaven" — the 
Father  not  only  of  "publicans  and  sinners"  among 
the  Jews,  but  of  schismatical  and  heretical  Samaritans, 
of  Eoman  centurions,  of  those  "  other  sheep  "  who  did 
not  belong  to  the  Jewish  fold.     That  great  Apostle  to 


REVELATION  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  51 

whom  especially  were  intrusted  the  "keys  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven,"  was  compelled,  almost  against 
his  will,  to  open  the  door  and  admit  the  whole  Gentile 
world  to  the  blessings  of  iiiith  and  salvation.  Even  to 
S.  Paul  this  was  the  very  mystery  of  God,  that  there 
were  no  longer  any  barriers  or  "middle  walls  of  par- 
tition "  between  Israel  and  the  outside  world.  They 
were  all  one  in  Christ.  "In  Christ  Jesus  there  is 
neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  Barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  nor 
free,  but  Christ  is  all  and  in  all."  "  I  am  debtor  both 
to  Greeks  and  Barbarians,  both  to  the  wise  and  to 
the  foolish.  So,  as  much  as  in  me  is,  I  am  ready  to 
preach  the  Gospel  to  you  also  that  are  in  Eome."  So, 
writing  to  the  Colossians,  he  tells  them  of  the  great 
mystery  that  he  had  been  commissioned  to  preach — 
namely,  that  Gentiles  though  they  were,  Christ  was  in 
them  "  the  hope  of  glory " ;  "  whom,"  he  goes  on  to 
say,  in  answer  at  once  to  Jews  and  Gnostics — "whom 
we  proclaim  admonishing  every  man,  and  teaching 
every  man  in  all  wisdom,  that  we  may  present  every 
man  perfect  in  Christ  Jesus."  * 

And  as  religion,  with  all  its  privileges,  was  now  for 
all  mankind,  it  was  obvious  that  the  Jewish  regulations 
as  to  times  and  places  of  worship  must  be  at  once 
relaxed  and  finally  superseded.  Jerusalem  might, 
indeed,  though  not  without  ever-increasing  difficulty, 
be  the  one  Holy  Place  for  the  inhabitants  of  Judaea 
and  Galilee,  but  never  for  those  whose  home  should 

*See  the  notes  on  this  passage  by  Bishop  Lightfoot :  Colos- 
sians, pp.  235-37.  The  immense  difficulty  of  realizing  the 
universality  of  the  Gospel — that  it  was  intended  for  every  man, 
and  the  whole  of  it  for  every  man — may  be  partially  understood 
by  those  who  have  carefully  studied  the  discussions  about  ' '  work 
among  the  coloured  people." 


52  KEVELATION  IN  THE  CHKISTIAN  CHUKCH. 

be  at  Kome,  or  in  Spain,  or  in  the  far-distant  Britain. 
Similarly  those  minute  regulations— many  of  which 
have  in  lapse  of  time  become  almost  wholly  unintelli- 
gible— as  to  clean  and  unclean  meats  and  animals  and 
the  like ;  regulations  one  of  whose  manifest  objects  was 
to  keep  the  people  of  Israel  separate  from  all  others ; 
became  positively  mischievous  when  every  Chris- 
tian man  was  to  be,  in  his  degree,  the  missionary  of  a 
universal  religion  to  those  whom  Scribes  and  Pharisees 
would  have  deemed  it  a  pollution  to  approach.  Thus 
our  Lord  teaches  the  Samaritan  woman  that  the  hour 
was  coming  when  no  place  could  be  honoured  as  "  the 
place "  where  men  were  bound  to  worship  God ;  and 
we  sometimes  fail  to  notice  that  the  bare  fact  that  He 
taught  anything  to  a  woman  of  Samaria,  much  more 
that  His  teaching  to  her  was  far  fuller  than  the  truth 
He  had  yet  declared  even  to  His  chosen  disciples,  was 
a  marvellous  anticipation  of  the  universal  religion. 
"  The  woman  saith  unto  Him,  Sir,  I  perceive  that  thou 
art  a  prophet.  Our  fathers  worshipped  in  this  moun- 
tain ;  and  ye  say  that  in  Jerusalem  is  the  place  where 
men  ought  to  worship.  Jesus  saith  unto  her,  Woman, 
believe  Me,  the  hour  cometh  when  neither  in  this 
mountain,  nor  in  Jerusalem,  shall  ye  worship  the 
Father.  Ye  worship  that  which  ye  know  not:  we 
worship  that  which  we  know :  for  salvation  is  from  the 
Jews.  But  the  hour  cometh,  and  now  is,  when  the 
true  worshippers  shall  worship  the  Father  in  spirit 
and  in  truth:  for  such  doth  the  Father  seek  to  be  His 
worshippers.  God  is  a  Spirit :  and  they  that  worship 
Him  must  worship  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  The  woman 
saith  unto  Him,  I  know  that  Messiah  cometh  (which 
is  called  Christ) :  when  He  is  come,  He  will  declare 


REVELATION   IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  53 

unto  ns  all  things.     Jesus  saith  unto  her,  I  that  speak 
unto  thee  am  He."    {Jolm  iv.  19-26.) 

Similarly  our  Lord  anticipates  in  His  own  emphatic 
teaching  the  later  revelation  to  S.  Peter,  that  God 
hath  cleansed  all  things :  "And  He  called  to  Him  the 
multitude  again,  and  said  unto  them,  Hear  Me,  all  of 
you,  and  understand :  there  is  nothing  from  without 
the  man  that  going  into  him  can  defile  him  :  but  the 
things  which  proceed  out  of  the  man  are  those  that 
defile  the  man.  And  when  He  was  entered  into  the 
house  from  the  multitude  His  disciples  asked  of  Him 
the  parable.  And  He  saith  unto  them,  Are  ye  so 
without  understanding  also  ?  Perceive  ye  not  that 
whatsoever  from  without  goeth  into  the  man  it  cannot 
defile  him,  because  it  goeth  not  into  his  heart,  but  into 
his  belly,  and  goeth  out  into  the  draught  ?  Tliis  he  said, 
making  all  meats  clean.*  And  he  said,  That  which 
proceedeth  out  of  the  man,  that  defileth  the  man.  For 
from  within,  out  of  the  heart  of  men,  evil  thoughts 
proceed,  fornications,  thefts,  murders,  adulteries,  covet- 
in  gs,  wickednesses,  deceit,  lasciviousness,  an  evil  eye, 
railing,  pride,  foolishness :  all  these  evil  things  proceed 
from  within  and  defile  the  man."    {Mark  vii.  14-23.) 

*  This  rendering,  of  course,  assumes  the  reading  Kadapli^uv  Tvdvra 
TO.  fipuftara,  for  which  the  MS  authority  is  overwhelming.  See 
Tischendorf  on  this  verse,  Editio  Octava  Critica  Major.  But, 
even  accepting  the  masculine  participle,  some,  like  Alford,  still 
refer  the  "  cleansing  "  not  to  Christ  or  to  His  teaching,  but  to 
the  process  of  digestion.  Alford  says  that  the  process  here 
described  is  physically  true :  the  impure  part  of  the  food  is 
cast  out,  the  pure  assimilated.  This  explanation  makes  "un- 
clean food  "  mean  simply,  "  indigestible  food."  But  our  Lord 
is  contrasting  what  "  goeth  into  the  belly  "  with  "  what  goeth 
ifito  the  heart."  The  rendering  of  the  Revised  Version  seems 
required  by  every  principle  both  of  text,  grammar  and  exegesis. 


54  KEVELATION  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHUKCH. 

This  indifference  of  what  is  merely  outward  was 
enforced  upon  S.  Peter  in  a  revelation  which  remark- 
ably illustrates  the  promise  of  Christ :  "  The  Spirit 
shall  guide  you  into  all  the  truth,  for  He  shall  take  of 
Mine  and  shew  it  unto  you."  And  S.  Paul  insists 
upon  the  same  truth  even  in  what  must  have  seemed 
to  many  so  very  serious  a  case  as  that  of  "  meats  offered 
to  idols."  There  was  no  spiritual  harm  in  such  meat 
itself;  nor  in  the  fact  that  it  had  been  offered  to  idols ; 
nor  in  the  fact  that  he  who  purchased  and  ate  it  knew 
or  strongly  suspected  that  it  had  been  so  offered.  But 
if  the  meat  were  eaten  with  the  desire  to  participate  in 
heathen  licentiousness,  or  as  an  acknowledgment  of  the 
reality  or  power  or  authority  of  the  idol,  these  desires 
or  ieliefs  would  be  what  our  Lord  describes  as  "going 
into  the  heart."  Eating  meat  offered  to  idols  with  such 
intentions  or  beliefs  would,  indeed,  defile — not  from  any 
lack  of  a  perfect  process  of  digestion,  but  because  the 
eating  would  be  accompanied  by  evil  thoughts  which 
no  possible  process  of  physical  digestion  could  in  the 
least  degree  remove. 

When,  then,  "the  fulness  of  the  times"  had  come, 
and  a  Universal  Eeligion  had  become  possible,  the 
protecting  envelope  of  the  old  revelations  was  first 
stretched  and  then  burst  and  destroyed.  After  the 
fall  of  Jerusalem  it  became  physically  impossible  to 
obey  the  old  law,. as  we  find  it  in  the  Old  Testament 
Scriptures,  which  were  accepted  as  of  divine  authority 
in  the  time  of  our  Lord's  personal  ministry.  No  one 
could  ofi'er  sacrifice  in  the  Temple  when  the  Temple  no 
longer  existed;  nor  through  the  Aaronic  priesthood 
when  not  a  single  descendant  of  Aaron  could  be  cer- 
tainly identified.    If  the  new  revelation  in  Christ  were 


REVELATION  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  55 

not  the  fulfilment  of  the  old,  then  the  old  religion  was 
forever  and  fatally  arrested,  and  the  mission  of  Israel 
had  conspicuously  failed.  But  when  we  speak  of  the 
religion  of  Christ  as  universal,  we  do  not,  of  course, 
mean  that  it  was  at  once,  by  a  miraculous  illumination, 
made  known  to  every  human  being ;  much  less  that  it 
was  accepted  by  all  those  to  whom  it  was  made  known, 
and  habitually  used  by  all  of  them  for  the  guidance 
of  their  lives.  It  was  universal  because  it  was  adapted 
to  all,  needed  by  all,  capable  of  redeeming  and  perfect- 
ing all.  As  a  matter  of  plain  history,  nothing  really 
valuable  has  yet  been  added  to  it ;  nor  does  it  contain 
anything  which  the  world  could  afford  to  lose.  But  it 
was  itself  a  part  of  the  progressive  and  slowly-moving 
operations  of  the  Almighty.  As  among  the  people  of 
Israel  the  protection  of  institutions,  of  a  cuUiis,  of  rites 
and  ceremonies,  of  appointed  ministers  and  instructors, 
was  necessary  to  prevent  the  corruption  and  dissipa- 
tion of  divine  truth,  so  was  a  similar  protection 
necessary  for  that  new  and  perfect  truth  which  was  not 
to  be  made  known  to  all  mankind  for  many  ages — which 
has  not  even  yet  been  made  known  to  more  than  a 
very  small  part  of  the  whole  human  race.  The  new 
revelation  had  to  be  protected,  like  the  old,  partly  by 
written  records,  which  at  a  comparatively  early  period 
were  produced,  and  which  still  remain  for  our  learning 
and  for  the  verification  of  all  later  teaching  and 
"developments."  But,  as  in  the  case  of  the  old,  the 
written  records  were,  for  immediate  practical  use,  and 
for  the  enormous  majority  of  those  to  whom  the  Gospel 
was  preached,  not  less  intrinsically  valuable,  but 
immeasurably  less  available  than  "  the  ministers  of 
Christ"  and  "the  mysteries  of  God."     By  living  men 


56  REVELATION  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN   CHURCH. 

and  by  permanent  and  visible  institutions,  the  Gospel 
of  Christ  was  both  propagated  and  preserved. 

The  Scriptures  contained  in  the  New  Testament 
Canon  are  of  such  inestimable  value  that  we  can 
scarcely  be  surprised  that  they  have  sometimes  been 
regarded  with  an  affection  that  was  almost  irrationally 
jealous.  They  have  done  so  much  for  us  that  many 
persons  can  with  difficulty  admit  or  even  believe  that 
they  were  not  the  sole  agency  both  for  the  propagation 
and  preservation  of  Christianity.  They  were  also,  in 
fact,  far  more  available  even  for  popular  instruction  than 
had  been  the  earlier  portions  of  the  Sacred  Books  of  the 
Hebrews  ;  they  were  far  more  widely  studied  and  more 
carefully  expounded.  They  appeared  in  a  literary  age, 
and  very  speedily  produced  a  literature  of  their  own. 
Neverthel  ess,  it  is  quite  certain,  as  an  historical  fact,  that 
they  did  not  suffice,  taken  alone,  either  for  the  procla- 
mation or  protection  of  the  new  and  perfect  revelation 
which  was  given  to  ns  in  the  incarnation  of  the 
Eternal  Word.  We  often  forget  that  when  we  speak 
of  "a  literary  age"  we  are  thinking  not  only  of  a 
particular  period  of  time,  but  of  a  particular  nation  or 
cluster  of  nations,  or  even  of  much  narrower  classes  of 
human  beings,  who  lived  during  that  particular  period. 
We  ourselves  are  living  in  a  literary  age  ;  and  so  also 
are  the  natives  of  Tierra  del  Fuego,  whom  Mr. 
Darwin  so  graphically  describes,  and  who  came  wander- 
ing about  the  Beagle  in  their  pitiable  filth  and  squalor. 
But  we  do  not  call  these  hideous  and  revolting 
cannibals  literary  simply  because  they  are  living  in 
the  nineteenth  century.  Nor  should  we  call  the 
negroes  of  the  Southern  States  literary,  nor  Irish 
peasants,  nor  the  ignorant  multitudes  Avhich  swarm  in 


REVELATION  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH,  57 

the  alleys  and  tenement-houses  of  our  large  cities. 
The  Scriptures  as  Scriptures,  that  is  to  say  as  written 
documents  which  to  be  used  must  be  read,  are  mani- 
festly of  no  immediate  service  whatever  to  those  who 
cannot  read.  Yet  the  truths  of  the  Gospel  have  been 
made  known,  and  the  precepts  of  the  Gospel  have 
been  applied  for  the  guidance  of  life,  to  countless 
myriads  of  human  beings  who  could  neither  read  nor 
write,  both  by  the  personal  ministry  of  the  Apostles, 
and  by  their  successors,  and  by  Christian  missionaries 
in  every  age  and  country,  and  by  parish  priests  and 
their  assistants  in  our  own  day  and  in  the  very  cities 
in  which  we  are  living.  Everybody  knows,  of  course, 
that  churches  had  been  founded  and  organized  in  all 
directions  before  a  single  book  of  our  New  Testament 
had,  in  its  present  form,  been  committed  to  writing. 

The  Eternal  Son  of  God,  for  the  redemption  of  the 
world,  left  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  "  took  upon  Him 
our  flesh  and  suffered  death  upon  the  Cross,"  was 
buried  and  rose  again.  His  whole  work  had  a  direct 
relation  to  Almighty  God,  to  the  Divine  Justice,  to 
the  majesty  of  God's  law,  and  in  its  full  meaning  and 
mysterious  necessity  is  far  beyond  the  reach  of  the 
human  faculties.  But  that  work  had  also  a  direct 
relation  to  men ;  and,  on  that  side,  it  could  produce 
its  effect  only  by  being  known  and  kept  in  remem- 
brance and  applied  to  the  conduct  of  life.  Enough  is 
revealed  to  us  of  the  relation  of  Christ's  work  to  the 
Father  to  remove  the  horrible  dread  of  our  consciences, 
the  haunting  apprehension  of  hopeless  alienation  ;  to 
assure  us  that,  if  we  lose  ourselves  in  Christ  and  come 
to  God  in  Him,  we  shall  certainly  be  accepted.  But 
that  part  of    His  work   which    has  a  direct  effect 


58  REVELATION  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH. 

upon  ourselves,  which  must  be  known  in  order  to 
accomplish  its  purpose,  is  much  more  fully  explained, 
because  by  its  very  nature  it  can  come  within  our  own 
experience,  and  is  on  the  level  of  our  intellectual  and 
moral  faculties.  So7ne  arrangement,  then,  had  to  be 
made  for  bringing  this  divine  and  blessed  truth  within 
the  reach  of  all  mankind ;  and  we  may  surely  reverently 
assume  that  what  Christ  really  did  provide  for  this 
purpose  was  certainly  far  wiser  and  better  than  what 
He  omitted  to  provide.  And  nobody  will  contend  that 
our  Lord  commanded  His  Apostles  first  of  all  to  7urite 
a  narrative  of  His  life  and  teaching  ;  and  then  doctrinal 
treatises  setting  forth  the  primary  inferences  from  that 
narrative ;  and  next  to  circulate  these  writings  far  and 
wide,  and  afterwards  go  about  the  world  to  explain 
them.  That,  most  unquestionably,  was  7iot  His  com- 
mission. It  was  this :  "  Go  ye  into  all  the  world  and 
preach  the  Gospel  to  every  creature ;  he  that  believeth 
and  is  baptized  shall  be  saved."  And  again  :  ''  Ye  shall 
receive  power,  when  the  Holy  Ghost  is  come  upon  you : 
and  ye  shall  be  My  witnesses  both  in  Jerusalem,  and  in 
all  Judaea,  and  Samaria,  and  unto  the  uttermost  part 
of  the  earth."  He  instituted  Sacraments;  "during 
forty  days"  He  kept  speaking  to  His  Apostles  con- 
cerning a  "Kmgdom  of  God." 

And  surely  a  Kingdom  of  God  is  something  real, 
visible,  organized ;  with  officers  and  laws ;  and  (being 
a  Kingdom  of  God)  with  a  ceremonial  of  worship.  A 
kingdom  in  which  everybody  does  what  he  likes  is  a  con- 
tradiction in  terms.  A  kingdom  which  has  no  ascer- 
tainable laws  is  a  mere  word  to  which  no  reality  corres- 
ponds. And  there  were  at  least  two  signs  of  this  King- 
dom of  God  instituted  by  Christ  Himself,  viz.  Baptism 


REVELATION  IN   THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  59 

and  the  Holy  Communion.  Suppose  somebody,  after 
hearing  S.  Paul  preach,  had  believed  his  message  and 
confessed  himself  a  disciple,  and  then  had  gone  on  to 
deliver  himself  in  some  such  fashion  as  this:  "Your 
teaching  is  profoundly  spiritual,  and  I  approve  it;  you 
state  facts  for  which  you  furnish  evidence  that  satisfies 
me ;  I  really  wish  to  be  identified  with  your  work,  and 
will  help  you  as  far  as  I  can.  But  I  can't  go  exactly  so 
far  as  you  do  in  what  seem  to  me  mere  forms  and  cere- 
monies. I  would  rather  not  be  baptized.  I  cannot 
see  that  any  real  good  can  come  from  the  use,  even  the 
religious  and  symbolic  use,  of  mere  water.  I  am 
already  a  disciple  by  faith.  And  I  don't  care  to  be 
mixed  up  with  your  Church.  Some  of  the  members 
are  very  vulgar,  some  are  not  even  good  men.  And 
you  certainly  yourself  speak  of  the  'Communion  of 
the  Body  of  Christ'  in  a  way  that  seems  to  me  very 
likely  to  mislead  thoughtless  people.  You  must  be 
aware  that  they  may  get  the  impression  from  your  way 
of  putting  it  that  your  simple  little  friendly  supper 
has  a  kind  of  mystery  about  it ;  that  it  corresponds 
somehow  to  a  sacrifice  in  which  the  offerers  and  par- 
ticipants have  communion  with  their  Deity  ;  that  the 
bread  and  wine  have  some  kind  of  real  and  spiritual 
efficacy.  I  wish  to  be  one  of  Christ's  disciples,  and  I 
will  be;  but  religion  is  of  the  heart,  and  so  I  will 
serve  God  in  my  own  way,  quietly  and  alone,  and  I 
doubt  not  He  will  receive  and  bless  me.  It  is  not  the 
form  I  care  for,  but  the  substance."  Now,  if  anybody 
had  addressed  S.  Paul  in  this  fashion,  can  we  have  the 
slightest  atom  of  doubt  how  he  would  have  been 
received  ?  People  (if  there  could  possibly  have  been 
such  in  those  days)  who,  when  they  believed,  refused 


60  REVELATION  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN   CHURCH. 

to  be  baptized;  who  took  jnst  as  miicli  and  just  as 
little  as  they  liked  of  the  Apostles'  "  doctrine  "  ;  who 
respectfully  begged  to  be  excused  from  the  Apostles' 
"  fellowship  "  ;  who  regarded  "  the  breaking  of  bread  " 
as  tending  dangerously  to  superstition;  who  said  their 
"prayers"  by  themselves  at  their  own  homes — such 
people  were  most  certainly  not  the  material  out  of 
which  the  primitive  Church  was  constructed.  To 
attempt  to  construct  any  Church  of  such  material, 
would  be  as  wise  as  to  attempt  to  build  a  cathedral  by 
letting  oxygen  gas  escape  into  the  open  air. 

We  do  not  vividly  realize  this  because  we  are,  in 
these  last  days,  so  familiar  with  the  exercise  of  self- 
will  and  independence  in  matters  of  religion ;  with  the 
great  multitude  and  ever  new  creation  of  sects.  We 
do  faintly  realize  it  sometimes  in  missionary  work, 
both  at  home  and  abroad.  And  in  fact  the  divisions 
of  Christendom,  though  exceedingly  injurious  and 
always  highly  dangerous,  are  not  as  yet  utterly  fatal, 
because  the  Churcli,  though  with  diminished  power, 
does  still  exist  and  bear  lier  testimony  to  the  world. 
But  is  it  worth  while  to  ask — even  if  by  the  mutual 
repulsion  of  gaseous  atoms  a  Church  could  have  been 
brought  into  existence — is  it  worth  while  to  ask  how, 
without  a  solid  organization,  an  august  hierarchy,  a 
fixed  creed,  a  solemn  liturgy,  the  perpetual  object- 
lessons  (to  say  nothing  of  the  divine  grace)  of  Sacra- 
ments, the  Church  of  Christ  could  have  been  preserved 
in  the  dissolution  of  the  Koman  Empire  and  the  cre- 
ation of  modern  nations  ?  It  may  be  irreverent  to 
speculate  upon  what  God  could  or  could  not  have  done 
for  the  protection  of  Christianity;  what  He  actually 
did  was  to  defend  it  by  the  organization  and  ecclesi- 


REVELATION  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  61 

astical  institutions  of  the  Church,  by  the  political 
genius  of  the  Roman  people,  and  by  the  supremacy  of 
the  Eoman  See.  It  is  hard,  indeed,  to  find  unmixed 
good  in  this  world,  either  in  Church  or  State.  The 
strong  power  which  saves  may  become  a  destructive 
despotism.  But  however  thankful  we  may  be  for  the 
Protestant  Reformation,  and  however  satisfied  witli  its 
results,  we  cannot  reverse  the  facts  of  history ;  and  it 
is  an  indisputable  fact  of  history  that  Christendom  was 
saved  by  the  See  of  Rome. 

The  perfect  revelation  of  divine  truth  in  the  Incar- 
nate AVord  has,  like  all  earlier  revelations,  to  make  its 
way  slowly  into  the  hearts  and  conduct  of  men.  It 
must  be  woven  into  their  lives ;  it  must  determine  their 
habits  ;  it  must  present  itself  even  to  their  senses ;  it 
must  be  so  summarized  that  it  can  be  learned  by  heart ; 
it  must,  as  a  "perfect  law  of  liberty,"  be  embodied  in 
precepts  ;  it  must  meet  men  at  every  turning  of  their 
lives,  giving  them  feasts  and  fasts ;  it  must  have  its 
appointed  ministers,  and  solemn  and,  it  may  be,  even 
gorgeous  rites.  Men  are  what  they  are,  not  what  we 
should  like  them  to  be.  They  do  not,  all  the  world 
over,  read  books,  carry  on  elaborate  trains  of  argument, 
steer  clear  of  the  Scylla  of  irreverence  and  the 
Charybdis  of  superstition.  They  have  not  only  their 
individual,  but  their  national  temperament.  There 
are  tens  of  thousands  of  simple  people  to  whom  a  road- 
side crucifix  would  teach  more  theology  than  all  the 
works  of  S.  Augustine  or  Hooker.  The  altar  and  the 
Eucharist  have  done  more  to  keep  alive  the  belief  in  a 
real  propitiatory  Sacrifice  on  the  Cross  on  Calvary,  and 
a  perpetual  intercession  on  our  behalf  in  heaven,  than 
all  the  sermons  that  have  ever  been  preaclied.     That 


62  KEVELATION  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH. 

we  need  a  higher  life  than  we  derive  from  our 
earthly  parents,  that  God  will  give  us  this  life,  that  He 
loves  and  cares  for  every  one  of  us,  and  that  His  love 
is  the  cause  and  not  the  effect  of  ours,  has  been  taught 
more  effectually  by  the  Sacrament  of  Baptism  than  by 
whole  libraries  of  systematic  divinity.  And  whenever 
religion,  even  the  Christian  religion,  has  been  deprived 
of  the  shelter  of  institutions,  a  cultus,  a  hierarchy, 
creeds,  Sacraments,  ritual,  it  has  been  more  or  less 
dissipated.  As  a  matter  of  plain  fact,  those  who 
minimize  Christian  doctrine  are  more  afraid  of  what 
they  call  "  externals  "  than  of  all  the  arguments  in  the 
world. 

Therefore,  at  once  for  the  propagation,  the  preserva- 
tion, the  application  to  all  varying  human  conditions,  of 
the  revelation  of  the  Son  of  God,  we  have  an  organized 
Church,  a  Kingdom  of  Heaven ;  "  ministers  of  Christ," 
"stewards  of  God's  mysteries,"  writing,  ruling, 
teaching — bringing  divine  truth  "home"  to  every 
child  of  man.  The  Church,  because  she  is  ever  the 
same,  can  be  ever  variable;  because  she  is  "the  pillar 
and  ground  of  the  truth,"  she  can  "  be  all  things  to  all 
men." 


EEVELATION  AS  AN  AUTHORITATIVE  GUID- 
ANCE OF  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE.* 

I  am  a  stranger  in  the  earth:  hide  not  Tlty  commandments 
from  me. — Psalm  cxix.  19. 

It  may  be  well,  in  a  few  brief  sentences,  to  recapitu- 
late the  substance  of  what  I  have  been  trying  to  say  to 
you  during  the  first  three  Sundays  in  Advent.  I 
explained  to  yon,  as  well  as  I  was  able,  what  I  believe 
revelation  to  be.  It  is  not  the  result  of  the  ordinary 
processes  of  the  human  understanding  in  pursuit  of 
truth.  An  industrious  schoolboy,  learning  lesson  after 
lesson,  becomes  at  last  a  consummate  mathematician 
or  a  classical  scholar;  but  it  would  be  an  absurd  abuse 
of  language  to  affirm  that  his  knowledge  of  mathe- 
matics or  of  Greek  grammar  and  literature  had  come 
to  him  by  revelation.  Plato's  Eepublic,  Aristotle's 
Ethics,  Paley's  Moral  Philosophy,  J.  S.  Mill's  Logic, 
are  highly  valuable  contributions  to  human  knowledge 
in  very  different  ways  and  very  different  degrees ;  but 
they  are  the  result  of  patient  inquiry,  severe  thought, 
knowledge  of  affairs,  and  the  like.  Eevelation  is  a 
direct  communication  from  God  to  the  spirit  of  a  man, 
of  truth  which,  then  and  there,  he  could  not  otherwise 
have  known;  and  of  rules  of  life  which,  then  and 
there,  he  could  not  otherwise  have  discovered.  That 
God  is  able  to  make  such  a  communication  to  men  is 
involved  in  His  very  nature  and  infinite  perfection. 

*  Preached  on  the  fourth  Sunday  in  AdA'ent,  1885. 


64       REVELATION  THE  GUIDE  OF  INDIVIDUAL   LIFE. 

And  when  we  remember  that  the  highest  even  of  the 
divine  attributes  is  infinite  love,  we  are  compelled  to 
admit  not  only  the  possibility  of  receiving,  but  the 
high  reasonableness  of  expecting,  such  special  revela- 
tions as  may  best  promote  that  happiness  and  goodness 
which  can  only  come  to  us  by  knowing  and  communing 
with  God.  And  as  a  matter  of  fact  these  revelations 
have  been  received  by  chosen  instruments  of  the  Divine 
Will ;  and  they  have  "  been  written  for  our  learning  " 
to  the  end  of  time.  They  have  been  stored  up  in 
outward  institutions,  in  forms  of  common  worship,  in 
significant  rites.  Since  the  Incarnation  of  the  Son  of 
God,  the  perfect  Prophet,  the  Very  Truth,  they  have 
been  preserved  and  protected  and  propagated  by  the 
same  method ;  we  find  them  in  the  simple  and  sublime 
narratives  of  the  four  Evangelists,  in  the  Apostolic 
Epistles,  in  the  Christian  Church — with  its  Sacraments, 
its  hierarchy,  its  liturgy  and  ritual,  its  common  prayer 
and  praise. 

This  morning  we  will  consider  revelation  as  the 
divine  provision  for  the  authoritative  and  unerring 
guidance  of  our  individual  lives.  What  it  is,  and 
where  it  is,  are  questions  of  the  utmost  possible 
importance,  and  in  the  order  of  logic  they  must  be 
answered  first  of  all.  But  when  we  have  arrived  at 
that  answer  we  are  instantly  confronted,  not  with  a 
theory,  but  with  a  paramount  obligation.  The  revealed 
will  of  God,  when  we  have  discovered  it,  must  be  the 
central  fact  in  the  conduct  of  our  lives.  What  He 
affirms  we  must  unhesitatingly  believe.  What  He 
commands  we  must  unhesitatingly  do.  The  truth 
may  be  mysterious,  the  demands  may  be  exacting ;  but 
to  faitli  and  obedience  there  is  no  possible  moral  alter- 


REVELATION  THE  GUIDE  OF  INDIVIDUAL   LIFE.       65 

native.  This  is,  of  course,  involved  in  everything  that 
I  have  been  saying,  but  it  deserves  and  demands  a 
separate  and  careful  consideration. 

The  revelations  granted  to  Israel  through  the 
prophets  were  intended  for  a  nation ;  the  revelation 
in  Jesus  Christ  was  for  a  Church  and  for  the  Avhole 
human  race.  And  undoubtedly  a  nation,  a  Church,  a 
race,  is  much  more  than  the  individuals  of  which  it  is 
composed.  It  would  be  possible,  by  skilful  analysis,  to 
reduce  a  human  body  to  its  simplest  chemical  elements ; 
and  the  oxygen  and  hydrogen,  the  carbon  and  lime, 
and  iron  and  phosphorus,  and  all  the  rest,  might  be 
set  side  by  side  in  suitable  vessels  with  both  quantitative 
and  qualitative  exactness.  'But  the  contents  of  the  row 
of  jars  or  bottles  would  bear  no  resemblance  to  the  living 
man  from  whose  body  they  had  been  derived.  The  ele- 
ments, the  constituents,  are  there;  what  is  lacking  is  an 
organism — combination,  mutual  dependence,  a  definite 
purpose,  a  perfect  adaptation.  But  though  all  the  parts 
are  not  necessarily  a  whole,  a  whole  cannot  possibly 
exist  without  the  parts.  "Hear,  0  Israel,  the  Lord 
thy  God  is  one  Lord,"  was  addressed  to  the  whole 
people ;  it  was  at  once  the  foundation  of  their  religion 
and  of  their  national  life.  But  it  was  also  addressed 
to  each  individual  Israelite.  Indeed,  society,  whether 
civil  or  ecclesiastical,  is  ordained  of  God  for  the  very 
purpose,  it  would  seem,  of  securing  individual  perfec- 
tion— the  perfection  both  of  happiness  and  of  goodness. 
It  is  a  divine  ordinance,  not  an  artificial  structure.  We 
cannot  choose  whether  or  not  we  shall  have  parents  ; 
members  of  some  family  we  imist  be.  Nay,  we  must 
have  been  born  within  the  territory  and  subject  to  the 
laws  of  some  sovereign  power.     But  society  is  not  an 


66       REVELATION  THE  GUIDE  OF   INDIVIDUAL   LIFE. 

end  ill  itself;  nor  is  it  possible  even  to  conceive  of  a 
prosperous  State  in  which  every  separate  citizen  should 
be  miserable  and  degraded.  On  the  other  hand,  a 
human  being  with  hungry  affections,  with  the  faculty 
of  speech,  with  unresting  curiosity  and  an  insatiable 
thirst  for  knowledge,  can  never  attain  the  greatness 
either  of  joy  or  power  of  which  his  nature  is  capable, 
without  communion  with  his  kind.  The  revealed  will 
of  God,  therefore,  like  the  ordinary  precepts  of  morality, 
assumes  that  domestic,  social,  civil,  political  life  which, 
in  truth,  is  not  a  work  of  art,  but  a  law  of  nature. 

Still,  it  is  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  characteristics 
of  the  supernatural  revelation  of  Avhich  we  have  the 
record  in  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  that  it  brings  each 
one  of  us,  sej)arately,  face  to  face  with  God.  "  Thou 
God  seest  me."  "  How  can  I  do  this  great  wickedness, 
and  sin  against  God  ?"  "  And  God  called  again : 
Samuel,  Samuel;  and  Samuel  answered,  Here  am  I." 
"  What  doest  thou  here,  Elijah  ?"  "  Hast  thou  found 
me,  0  mine  enemy  ?"  "  So  then  every  one  of  us  must 
give  account  of  himself  to  God."  It  is  thus  that  the 
divine  revelation  meets  us.  We  are  members  of  a 
family ;  citizens  of  a  State ;  scarcely  distinguishable  in 
a  vast  crowd :  the  din  of  the  world  drowns  our  voice, 
and  renders  the  voices  of  those  around  us  inarticulate. 
But  there  is  07ie  Voice  never  inarticulate,  one  Eye  never 
dim-sighted,  one  Power  which  we  can  never  elude. 
The  two  ultimate  facts  for  us,  as  a  divine  revelation 
forces  itself  upon  our  recognition,  are  these — God  and 
ourselves.  In  fact,  such  a  revelation  answers,  or 
anticipates,  the  prayer.  "  I  am  a  stranger  in  the  earth : 
hide  not  Thy  commandments  from  mc." 

What  an  unfathomable  depth  of  meaning  there  is  in 


KEVELATION   THE  GUIDE  OF  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE.       67 

these  few  words  !  They  are  not  a  definition  of  dogma, 
they  are  a  prayer.  But  (to  take  one  side  only  of  wliat 
they  contain)  they  set  before  us  the  whole  necessity, 
reasonableness,  conditions,  "  philosophy,"  of  revelation. 
"  /am  a  stranger."  Here  we  come  to  "  the  abysmal  deeps 
of  personality,"  and  to  that  unfathomable  mystery  of  a 
human  spirit  at  once  created  and  creative,  dependent 
and  free,  a  part  of  Nature  and  having  dominion  over  it. 
"  A  stranger  in  the  earthJ"  Here  is  the  arena  of  human 
conflict,  the  sphere  of  human  duty,  the  tools  and  the 
materials  of  human  work.  "  Hide  not  Thy  command- 
ments from  me."  Here  is  the  consciousness  of  God, 
the  realization  of  His  love,  the  deep  conviction  that  we 
need  His  guidance,  the  unfaltering  confidence  that  we 
shall  not  ask  for  it  in  vain.  "  Hide  not  Thy  coiiwiand- 
ments  from  me."  Here  is  the  acknowledgment  that 
what  we  need  is  not  advice,  but  government;  not  a  theory, 
but  a  law ;  not  the  satisfaction  of  our  curiosity,  but  the 
guidance  of  our  lives ;  not  philosophy,  but  authority. 
What  a  solemn  pathos  is  in  these  words :  "  I  -am  a 
stranger  in  the  earth  "!  Alas !  one  poor,  forlorn  soul  in 
so  bewildering  a  labyrinth!  One  scarcely  knows  on 
which  side  the  danger  is  the  greatest — whether  on  the 
side  of  beauty  or  deformity,  law  or  disorder.  "  Love 
not  the  world,"  the  Kosmos,  the  orderly  arrangement  of 
the  universe,  its  ravishing  beauty,  its  majestic 
sublimity,  its  unchanging  monotony,  its  endless 
variety.  But  how  can  we  help  loving  it?  Did  not 
the  Eternal  Himself,  as  He  looked  down  upon  it  fresh 
from  His  creating  hands,  say  of  it,  "  It  is  very  good"  ? 
It  is  not,  indeed,  our  home:  we  are  conscious  of  a 
divine  origin  and  a  heavenly  destiny.  But  it  is  the 
place  of  our  sojourning,  and  so  unutterably  fair. 


68       REVELATION  THE  GUIDE  OF  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE. 

Earth  fills  her  lap  with  pleasures  of  her  own ; 
Yearnings  she  hath  in  her  own  natural  kind, 
And  even  with  something  of  a  mother's  mind, 

And  no  unworthy  aim, 
The  homely  nurse  doth  all  she  can 
To  make  her  foster-child,  her  inmate  Man, 
Forget  the  glories  he  hath  known, 

And  that  imperial  palace  whence  he  came.* 

"The  world"  not  only  hides  God  from  us,  but  the 
concealing  veil  is  so  beautifully  painted  we  cannot 
bring  ourselves  to  believe  that  there  is  anything  more 
beautiful  behind.  What  can  we  need  more  than  all 
this  wealth  of  beauty  and  life?  Every  bodily  sense  is 
satisfied.  Our  intellectual  curiosity  is  delighted  by 
ever-new  surprises.  Microscope  and  telescope  are  for- 
ever revealing  to  us  new  worlds.  There  is  a  stable 
order  among  whose  interspaces  we  move  with  a  deli- 
cious and  exhilarating  freedom.  The  wonders  are 
inexhaustible;  our  hearts  are  too  full  for  utterance;  it 
is  a  bliss  to  be  alone.  The  fragrance  of  the  flowers, 
the  songs  of  birds,  "  the  washing  of  the  eternal  seas," 
the  roar  of  the  thunder,  the  howling  of  the  storm ;  the 
all  but  infinite  variations,  combinations,  modulations, 
contrasts  in  the  music  of  life— can  there  be  anything 
better  and  more  satisfying  ? 

But  soon  we  become  weary  of  tlie  loneliness  of  our 
rapture.  There  is  something  within  us  that  refuses  to 
be  solitary ;  and  as  we  wander  through  the  world  we 
find  that  we  are  not  alone.  The  v/orld  is  crowded 
with  human  inhabitants;  we  meet  them,  converse  with 
them,  love  them,  hate  them ;  are  helped  or  thwarted  by 
them.  We  find  that  we  can  mould  their  lives,  and 
they  ours.     Winged  words  pass  to  and  fro  from  each  to 

*  Wordsworth, 


REVELATION  THE  GUIDE  OF  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE.       69 

the  other.   New  thoughts  and  desires  arise  in  our  hearts. 
We  are  fired  with  a  noble  ambition ;  we  are  drugged 
into  a  degrading  lethargy  ;  we  are  stimulated  to  a  hero- 
ism of  virtue ;  we  are  allured  into  the  deceitful  pleasures 
of  sin  and  shame.      Yet  amid  the  multitude  of  our 
fellows  we  are  "  strangers  "  still.     We  thoroughly  know 
but  the  mere  surface  of  each  other's  lives.    And  then 
we  separate,  never,  perhaps,  to  meet  again.     In  some 
quiet  hour  we  recall  our  past  years,  and  out  of  the 
mists  of  forgetfulness  we  see  gazing  wistfully  upon  us 
the  faces  of  those  with  whom  we  were  once  familiar, 
but  who  are  now  far  beyond  our  reach.      Seas  and 
oceans  now  divide  us,  or  perhaps  the  dark,  mysterious 
river  of  Death.     We  try  to  live  over  again  in  vivid 
memory    "the  days  o'   lang  syne."      What    ghastly 
recollections  haunt  our  souls  !     Ah  yes  !     What  face  is 
that  turned  so  wistfully  towards  us  in  the  dim  light  ? 
Whose  are  those  yearning,  mournful,  beseeching  eyes  ? 
They  are  the  face  and  eyes  of  a  friend  of  our  eager, 
passionate,  undisciplined  youth.     What  merry  days  and 
nights  we  spent  together !  what  laughter  and  song !  what 
«  wine  and  women " !  what  "  pleasant  vices" !     Where 
is  he  now,  and  what  has  he  come  to  be  ?    Alas !  it  was 
through  us  that  he  is  "  lost  to  life  and  use  and  name 
and  fame."     And  we  can  never  undo  the  wrong.    What 
can  have  possessed  us  to  play  so  recklessly  with  any- 
thing so  subtle,  so  complex,  so  exquisitely  delicate  as  a 
human  life?     And  we  are  forever  clashing  together, 
not  knowing  what  we  do.     Fools  that  we  are,  we  think 
ourselves  wise  enough  to  direct  our  own  goings,  and  to 
determine  with  accuracy  the  resultant  of  the  innumer- 
able forces,  moving  in  every  direction,  which  every 
moment  we  must  encounter. 


TO       REVELATION  THE  GUIDE  OF  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE. 

"  She  remembers  no  more  the  anguish  for  joy  that  a 
man  is  born  into  the  workl."  But  were  we  really  to 
be  left  to  our  own  guidance,  the  anguish  that  the  child 
was  born  would  be  far  more  intolerable  than  any 
anguish  of  travail.  Even  the  heathen  poet  could 
thank  God  for  the  darkness  in  which  He  veils  the 
future.*  If  there  were  no  divine  Pilot,  how  fiendish 
would  be  the  cruelty  of  setting  this  little  life  adrift 
upon  the  mighty  ocean  of  time  and  chance,  with  its 
strong  currents,  its  hidden  rocks,  its  terrific  storms,  its 
scarcely  less  fatal  calms!  The  mother,  with  an  in- 
stinctive faith  that  all  will  be  well,  folds  her  baby  to 
her  bosom,  nourishes  him  with  her  own  life,  forgets 
that  he  is  a  mere  "  stranger"  in  a  labyrinthine  world. 
But  alas  !  what  woes  and  perils  await  him!  Who  shall 
protect  him  from  *'  the  terror  by  night,"  from  "  the 
arrow  that  fiieth  by  day,"  from  *'  the  pestilence  that 
walketh  in  darkness,"  from  "the  destruction  that 
wasteth  at  noonday"?  Who  shall  assure  him  that, 
passing  safely  through  all  the  diseases  of  childhood,  he 
shall  have  a  "  sound  body  "  as  the  home  and  instrument 
of  "  a  sound  mind  "  ?  Chiefly,  who  shall  assure  him 
of  a  sound  mind  ?  How  shall  he  be  trained  and 
educated?  By  his  mother,  so  as  to  be  saved  tempta- 
tion and  rough  contact  with  those  who  might  lead  him 
astray?  Alas!  a  woman  cannot  train  a  inan.  She 
will  mistake  effeminacy  for  purity,  innocence  for 
virtue.  No,  he  must  go  out  into  the  world.  At  school 
he  will  meet  rough,  coarse  boys  who  will  soon  initiate 
him  into  the  mysteries  of  sin,  and  prepare  him  for 
graduation  in  the  University  of  Vice.     He  may  fare 

*  Prudens  futuri  temporis  exiLum 
Caliginosa  nocte  premit  deus. — Horace,  Od.  III.  29. 


EEVELATION  THE   GUIDE  OF  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE.       71 

worse  still  at  college.  And  when  he  gets  fairly  into 
"the  world"  and  begins  real  "life"  for  himself,  the 
dangers  will  thicken  on  every  hand.  Do  we  not  read 
the  newspapers  every  day  ?  And  what  is  their  record 
of  passing  events  ?  Murder,  suicide,  adultery,  embez- 
zlement, bribery,  corruption,  bankruptcy.  True,  these 
are  crimes;  they  are  held  up  to  public  execration. 
But  they  are  made  sensational ;  they  are  so  skilfully 
recorded  that  they  become  a  kind  of  comic  literature. 
The  keen  edge  of  moral  reprobation  is  blunted,  and 
"fools  make  a  mock  of  sin."  This  is  the  "world" 
into  which  "the child  is  born."  Well  may  each  of  us 
say :  "  I  am  a  stranger  in  the  earth  " ! 

But  now,  as  I  have  reminded  you  already,  there  is 
given  to  each  one  of  us  a  primary  revelation  of  God  in 
conscience.  We  are  aware  of  a  Presence  from  which 
we  can  never  escape,  of  a  Judge  to  whom  we  are 
accountable.  Life,  therefore,  at  first  sight,  is  more 
terrible  than  ever.  In  this  labyrinth  of  the  world  we 
may  indeed — nay,  it  seems  as  if  we  must — lose  our 
way,  but  we  shall  be  punished  if  we  do.  We  get 
entangled  in  a  web  of  temptations,  but  we  are  none  the 
less  responsible.  We  follow  "  the  devices  and  desires 
of  our  own  hearts,"  but  we  cannot  be  satisfied  with 
our  own  wilful  abuse  of  freedom:  we  are  consumed 
with  remorse.  God  is  within  us :  He  seems  also  to  be 
everywhere.  We  hnoiu  Him,  but  all  Nature  and  all 
events  suggest  Him,  and  remind  us  of  His  immanence 
and  rule.  Whence  comes  the  order  of  the  universe, 
its  infinite  adaptations,  its  clear  purpose?  Why  is  it 
that  sin  is  fast  bound  to  sufiering  ?  We  are  ourselves 
continually  forming  resolves  and  plans  and  executing 
them.     Our  own  loill  makes  us  familiar  with  power. 


72       REVELATION  THE  GUIDE  OF  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE. 

Our  own  conscience  justifies  the  severe  punishments 
which  are  continually  inflicted  upon  evil-doers.  When 
we  reflect  upon  our  own  mental  operations,  our  own 
clear  distinction  of  right  from  wrong,  we  cannot  help 
believing  that  truth  and  righteousness  are  at  the 
foundation  of  the  order  of  the  universe.  And  this 
conviction  is  strengthened  by  discovering  that  thoughts 
similar  to  our  own  are  continually  arising  in  the  minds 
of  other  men.  Not  only  have  even  the  most  degraded 
and  uncivilized  some  confident  belief  in  a  supreme 
power  to  which  they  must  needs  submit,  but  in  pro- 
portion to  the  culture  and  intellectual  development 
and  widened  experience  of  men  has  this  confidence 
been  strengthened  and  purified.  The  primary  revela- 
tion in  conscience  is  verified  at  every  turn  by  innumer- 
able and  ever-varying  observations  and  experiments. 
In  proportion  as  we  rise  towards  the  utmost  dignity 
and  power  of  which  our  nature  is  capable  do  we  find 
God  everywhere,  immanent  in  the  world  which  He 
created,  and  calling  us  to  judgment  for  every  one  of 
our  deeds  and  words  and  thoughts,  for  our  neglects 
and  omissions. 

Here,  then,  are  loe,  with  all  the  mystery  of  a  human 
personality ;  endowed  with  reason,  will  and  conscience  ; 
in  a  world  whose  vastness  and  minuteness  equally 
baffle  us ;  surrounded  by  sentient  creatures,  on  which 
we  can  inflict  and  from  which  we  can  suffer  pain; 
continually  coming  into  contact  with  human  beings 
like  ourselves,  whose  wills  defy  anticipation,  whom  we 
can  bless  or  curse,  and  who  in  their  turn  can  ennoble 
or  brutalize  ourselves.  So  ignorant  are  we,  that  our 
best  intentions  are  no  guarantee  that  we  shall  do  the 
thinsrs  that  we  would.     What  we  meant  for  a  caress  is 


REVELATION  THE  GUIDE  OF  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE.       73 

a  stunning  blow ;  we  intend  to  give  pleasure,  and  we 
produce  excruciating  agony.  It  seems  as  if  we  can 
grow  wise  only  on  condition  of  endless  experiments  of 
folly ;  as  if  Ave  can  grow  good  only  on  condition  of 
endless  experiments  of  evil. 

Alas !  this  even  is  not  the  worst.  We  find  in  our- 
selves a  mystery  of  iniquity.  "  There  is  a  law  in  our 
members  warring  against  the  law  of  our  minds  and 
bringing  us  into  subjection."  It  is  the  noblest  dis- 
tinction of  our  human  nature  that,  when  we  will,  we 
can  distinguish  with  unerring  certainty  good  from 
evil,  right  from  wrong.  But  we  have  an  almost  infinite 
power  of  self-deception.  Our  "  heart  is  deceitful  above 
all  things  and  desperately  wicked."  We  "call  evil 
good  and  good  evil ;  put  darkness  for  light  and  light 
for  darkness ;  bitter  for  sweet  and  sweet  for  bitter." 
We  cannot  explain  it,  but  there  seems  to  be  something 
in  us  tainted,  corrupt,  fallen,  all  but  utterly  and  hope- 
lessly ruined ;  and  our  own  consciousness  and  expe- 
rience are  repeated  in  every  human  being  we  meet.  We 
seem  cursed  with  a  horrible  affinity  for  what  we  loathe 
and  despise;  we  are  irresistibly  attracted  by  what  is 
inwardly  repulsive.  We  seem  to  shelter  in  our  own 
mysterious  nature  every  brute  lust  and  passion :  the 
subtlety  of  the  serpent,  the  ferocity  of  the  tiger,  the 
sensuality  which  in  the  lower  animals  is  a  harmless 
and  necessary  instinct,  but  which  in  us  is  the  most 
comprehensive  of  all  degradations.  We  seem  more 
foolish  than  the  beasts  that  perish,  for  they  know  what 
they  want  and  they  pursue  it,  and  we  do  not.  We 
lavish  the  all  but  divine  wealth  of  our  affections  upon 
worthless  objects;  with  the  utmost  eagerness  we  pur- 
sue shadows;   with   incredible  recklessness  we  fling 


74       REVELATION  THE  GUIDE  OF  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE. 

away  the  permanent  blessedness  of  life.  Truly  "we 
are  strangers  in  the  earth,"  and  we  ourselves  are 
stranger  than  the  inexplicable  world. 

Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  the  discords  of  our  own 
nature  and  the  intricacies  of  the  world,  become  what 
we  may,  go  where  we  will,  we  carry  God  within 
us,  we  find  Him  everywhere  around  us :  making 
Himself  known  to  us  in  the  primary,  irresistible, 
ineradicable  revelation  of  conscience,  verifying  that 
primary  revelation  by  the  multitudinous  experiences 
of  life.  We  may  "climb  up"  into  the  "heaven" 
of  mystic  communion,  of  high  and  noble  resolves ;  we 
may  "go  down"  into  the  "hell"  of  corruption  and 
folly  and  vice.  But  "  if  we  climb  up  into  heaven  He 
is  there ;  if  we  go  down  to  hell  He  is  there  also."  Fly- 
ing on  "  the  wings  of  the  morning,"  Ave  cannot  get 
beyond  Him ;  in  the  densest  darkness  of  our  doubt,  or 
even  our  despair.  He  abides  unchanged  and  unchange- 
able. We  may  be  "  strangers,"  but  He  is  everywhere  at 
home ;  and  being  at  home,  utterly  knowing  us  and 
knowing  the  Avorld,  if  He  will  He  most  assuredly  is 
able  to  guide  us.  And  so  there  has  ever  ascended  to 
the  Eternal  the  cry,  articulate  or  even  inarticulate, 
with  much  or  little  comprehension  of  its  full  meaning^ 
the  bleating  of  the  lost  sheep  for  the  Shepherd,  the  cry 
of  the  lost  child  for  his  Father : — "  We  are  strangers 
in  the  earth :  hide  7iot  Thy  commandments  fro^n  us." 

But  let  us  carefully  consider  what  this  prayer  means. 
What  is  that  perplexity  which  wrings  it  from  our 
hearts  ?  Is  it  simply  that  we  cannot  understand  the 
world — in  the  sense  in  which  a  chemist  may  be  baffled 
in  the  analysis  of  a  very  complex  substance  of  exceed- 
ingly unstable  equilibrium  ?    Do  we  want  a  science  of 


KEVELATION  THE  GUIDE  OF  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE.       75 

Nature,  an  accurate  psychology,  a  well-arranged  cata- 
logue of  successive  phenomena?  Is  it,  in  a  word,  any 
form  of  knoiuledge  which  would  satisfy  us  ?  On  the 
other  hand,  ignorance  has  its  delights.  It  is  the  source 
of  curiosity  and  wonder.  The  hunt  seems  often  more 
satisfying  than  the  game.  If  we  were  only  contem- 
plative and  intellectual  beings,  complete  knowledge 
would  be  a  kind  of  Nirvana,  at  once  perfection  and 
annihilation.  Even  as  it  is,  the  wealth  of  our  knowledge 
sometimes  embarrasses  us :  if  we  knew  less  we  could 
do  more.  Much  oftener  our  knowledge  is  the  direct 
source  of  our  misery  and  confusion:  if  we  had  known 
less  we  should  have  been  less  guilty.  No  doubt  we 
want  a  map  and  chart  of  life ;  but  maps  and  charts  are 
not  merely  pretty  drawings,  and  nobody  would  ever 
construct  them  as  mere  works  of  art.  They  are  for  the 
traveller  and  the  seaman,  not  for  the  connoisseur.  They 
are  for  use,  not  merely  for  admiration.  They  are  for 
people  who  desire,  by  the  safest  and  nearest  way,  to 
reach  a  definite  goal ;  not  for  people  rambling  about 
the  world  in  search  of  beauty,  and  careless  where  they 
land  and  how  long  they  stay,  if  only  they  may  gratify 
their  aesthetic  instincts.  What  we  want,  when  in  our 
deepest  need  we  cry  to  God — that  deepest  need  which 
always  compels  us  to  be  sincere — is  not  information, 
but  law ;  not  theories,  but  commandments. 

But  here  again  we  are  confronted  with  the  contradic- 
tions of  our  nature.  The  abundance  of  our  revelations 
bewilders  us ;  we  forget  why  we  desired  them.  Having 
received  the  answer  to  our  questions,  we  cannot  realize 
that  all  further  questioning  must  be  superseded.  We 
wanted  a  guide ;  but  when  He  comes  to  us  we  begin  to 
require  Him  to  satisfy  us  that  He   knows  the  way 


76       REVELATION  THE  GUIDE  OF  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE. 

which  our  desperate  ignorance  compelled  us  to  ask 
from  Him,  We  will  be  both  learners  and  teachers,  feeble 
and  omnipotent,  "strangers"  and  at  home.  Freedom, 
we  say,  is  our  birthright;  moreover,  it  is  at  the  very 
core  of  our  religion,  which  must  be  a  "reasonable 
service,"  a  "law  of  liberty."  We  must  be  won,  not 
driven ;  we  must  surrender  our  hearts  and  not  our 
behaviour. 

And,  indeed,  liberty  is  a  necessary  condition  of  all 
religion  and  morals. 

Our  wills  are  ours,  we  know  not  how  ; 
Our  wills  are  ours  to  make  them  Thine. 

But  liberty  is  not  an  end  in  itself,  nor  does  it  teach 
us  its  own  uses  or  limits.  Nevertheless,  those  uses  and 
limits  it  is  by  no  means  difficult  to  discover.  "  Give 
me  the  liberty,"  says  John  Milton,  "  to  know,  to  utter 
and  to  argue  freely  above  all  liberties."  "  To  know  " 
— that  is,  to  arrive  at  some  positive  and  ultimate  truth. 
"To  utter" — that  is,  to  impart  what  we  have  ascer- 
tained to  be  true  to  other  people.  "  To  argue  " — that 
is,  to  clear  our  minds  from  the  errors  of  first  impressions. 
But  when  we  really  have  come  to  know  some  particular 
truth,  we  have,  so  far  as  that  particular  truth  is  con- 
cerned, exhausted  the  uses  of  our  liberty.  There  is 
nothing  more,  in  that  direction,  to  be  done.  Liberty  to 
know  is  not  the  same  thing  as  liberty  to  forget,  or  liberty 
to  deny,  or  liberty  to  corrupt.  After  knowledge  come 
feeling,  purpose,  resolve,  action;  but  a  truth  once  accur- 
ately known  is  itself  unalterable.  Further  inquiry  is 
sii  perlluous ;  and  restless  curiosity  and  corrosive  criticism 
will  only  deprive  us  of  the  benefits  of  the  knowledge 
of  that  truth  which  we  have  with  difficulty  discovered 


REVELATION  THE   GUIDE  OF  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE,       77 

or  which  may  have  been  supernaturally  imparted  to  us. 
In  the  sense  that  nobody  can  prevent  us,  we  are  free  to 
deny  the  multiplication  table,  or  that  the  three  angles 
of  a  triangle  are  together  equal  to  two  right  angles ; 
but  he  who  should  so  use  his  liberty  would  be  regarded 
not  as  a  splendid  and  daring  genius,  but  as  a  hopeless 
lunatic.  And  surely  it  would  be  equally  foolish  and 
irrational  to  obtain  from  God  Himself  minute  direc- 
tions for  the  guidance  of  our  lives,  and  forthwith  to 
begin  to  criticise  them  and  to  correct  them,  and  to  set 
them  aside. 

Of  course  it  will  be  rightly  objected  that  the  law  of 
God  which  He  has  been  pleased  to  reveal  to  us,  and 
the  revelation  of  which  has  been  preserved  for  us  in 
the  Sacred  Scriptures  and  in  the  various  institutions 
of  the  Church,  is  by  no  means  so  simple  as  the  deduc- 
tions of  geometry  or  algebra.  When  these  are  clearly 
understood  by  a  sane  mind,  it  is  simply  impossible 
even  to  doubt  them.  Especially  the  terms  employed 
are  strictly  defined,  and  are  always  used  in  the  same 
sense.  If  we  would  understand  the  relative  com- 
plexity of  mathematical  and  ethical  science,  we  may 
compare  the  definitions  of  a  circle,  a  triangle,  a  square, 
with  the  definitions  of  a  man,  virtue,  wisdom,  duty. 
Moreover,  a  continuous  series  of  revelations,  of  which 
the  later  not  only  imply  but  partially  supersede  the 
earlier,  can  be  understood  only  after  patient  and 
reverent  investigation,  and  will  ofier  problems  for  our 
solution  of  the  utmost  complexity  and  delicacy.  The 
restless  curiosity  of  the  human  intellect,  closely  con- 
nected as  it  is  with  the  exacting  demands  of  the  human 
conscience,  is  a  most  precious  gift  of  God  without 
which  we  might  easily  mistake  a  small  part  for  the 


78      KEVELATION  THE  GUIDE  OF  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE. 

whole,  and  rest  contented  at  once  with  imperfect 
knowledge  and  rudimentary  or  fragmentary  virtue. 
The  whole  domain  of  truth  is  so  vast  that  we  should 
never  have  strength  or  courage  even  to  attempt  its 
conquest  but  for  that  insatiable  longing,  that  eager, 
passionate  desire  which  God  has  made  a  part  of  our 
nature.  In  addition  to  all  that  we  have  discovered,  in 
addition  to  all  that  God  has  revealed,  there  are  still 
boundless  realms  of  truth  from  whose  nearest  frontiers 
we  are  separated  by  an  almost  illimitable  distance. 
After  every  new  attainment,  after  every  largest  victory, 
there  is  still  the  divine  promise :  The  Holy  Spirit  of 
God  "  shall  shew  you  things  to  cQme,^' 

Nevertheless,  though  progress  be,  in  its  very  nature, 
a  perpetual  motion  onwards,  it  also  involves — in  spite 
of  the  verbal  paradox — innumerable  intervals  of  rest. 
The  swiftest  runner  must,  at  least  for  an  instant,  plant 
his  foot  firmly  on  some  particular  spot.  Every  lever 
must  have  its  fulcrum,  and  though  our  ambition  may 
be  to  "  move  the  world,"  we  must  have  a  "  where  to 
stand."  We  shall  never  secure  the  whole  if  we  allow 
each  part  to  escape  us  as  soon  as  we  have  made  it  our 
own.  The  whole  series  of  divine  revelations,  in  their 
variety  and  their  unity,  will  aflFord  ample  scope  for 
incessant  inquiry ;  but  each  truth,  as  soon  as  we  have 
ascertained  it,  must  be  put  to  practical  use,  not  to  a 
new  analysis.  It  is  this  that  we  so  habitually  forget. 
We  are  "strangers  in  the  earth,"  and  we  cry  for 
guidance,  for  authority,  for  "  commandments."  But 
when  we  have  received  them  we  treat  them  not  as 
solutions  of  our  diflBculty,  but  as  new  problems.  We 
regard  them  not  as  a  clue  to  the  labyrinth  of  life,  but 
as  new  windings. 


REVELATION  THE  GUIDE  OF  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE.       79 

When,  therefore,  I  remind  yon  that  a  revelation  is 
final,  that  it  leaves  ns  no  room  for  specnlation  or 
correction,  but  must  be  followed  at  once  by  exact 
obedience,  I  by  no  means  imply  that  you  have  exhaust- 
ively studied  and  perfectly  understood  the  whole  series 
of  divine  revelations.  I  am  very  far  from  asserting 
that  they  will  not  even  introduce  you  to  new  mysteries, 
which  will  be  at  once  the  objects  of  your  faith  and  the 
satisfaction  and  provocation  of  your  intellects.  But  I 
would  urge  upon  your  consideration  that  as,  piece  by 
piece,  you  do  comprehend  or  apprehend  the  meaning 
of  these  revelations,  they  must,  for  all  practical  pur- 
poses, be  final  and  conclusive.  If  you  ask  Almighty 
God  to  teach  you,  you  must  be  willing  to  learn :  when 
He  tells  you  what  to  do,  there  is  no  possible  moral 
alternative  but  forthwith  to  do  it. 

What,  for  instance,  do  we  mean  by  religion?  On 
the  theoretical  or  dogmatic  side  it  consists  of  certain 
trutlis  and  facts;  on  the  practical  side  it  consists  of 
certain  precepts,  principles,  laws,  which  are  intended 
for  the  guidance  of  our  lives  in  our  relations  to  God ; 
and  in  our  relations  to  each  other  so  fiir  as  those  rela- 
tions arise  out  of,  or  are  dependent  upon,  our  relations 
to  God.  And  by  the  Christian  religion  we  mean  those 
truths  which  are  revealed  to  us  in  Christ,  and  those 
practical  directions  which  are  contained  or  implied  in 
what  Christ  has  said  and  done,  and  in  what  He  Him- 
self is.  In  the  Sacred  Scriptures  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment we  have  four  narratives  of  the  life  of  our  Blessed 
Lord  on  earth,  Avith  the  record  of  very  much  of  His 
teaching:  from  the  comparative  simplicity  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  to  the  profound  mysteries  of 
His  last  discourses  immediately  before  the  Passion. 


80       EEVELATION  THE  GUIDE  OF  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE. 

The  Four  Gospels  are  the  very  central  and  essential 
part  of  the  New  Testament ;  their  truth  is  implied  in 
every  Epistle,  and  in  those  Apostolic  labours  a  part  of 
which  are  reported  in  the  Acts  of  the  AjMstles.  If  we 
reject  the  Four  Gospels,  we  have  rejected  the  Christian 
religion  altogether.  "  They  have  taken  away  my  Lord, 
and  I  know  not  where  they  have  laid  Him."  And  the 
Four  Gospels,  notwithstanding  their  natural  and  highly 
instructive  variations,  are  perfectly  harmonious.  In 
each  of  them  are  set  forth  the  perfect  humanity  and 
the  divine  glory  of  our  Saviour  Christ.  They  all 
record  miracles  as  well  as  discourses.  There  is  no 
reason  for  rejecting  one  of  them  which  would  not  be 
conclusive  for  rejecting  them  all;  there  is  no  reason 
for  rejecting  any  part  of  one  which  would  not  be 
equally  conclusive  for  rejecting  the  whole  of  that  one. 
There  are  in  the  existing  manuscripts  of  the  Four 
Gospels  thousands  of  "  various  readings,"  the  enormous 
majority  of  which  are  doctrinally  insignificant;  but 
what  might  be  called  the  minimum  text  leaves  the 
narrative  of  our  Lord's  life  and  teaching  substantially 
unaltered.  If,  then,  we  accept  these  Gospels  as  his- 
torically veracious,  we  must  regard  our  Blessed  Lord 
as  the  Eternal  Son  of  God,  "made  flesh"  for  the 
world's  redemption,  the  absolute  Master  and  infallible 
Teacher  of  every  human  spirit.  From  His  judgment 
there  is  no  possibility  of  appeal.  His  teaching  is  the 
perfect  answer  to  the  prayer,  wrung  from  us  by  the 
hard  necessities  of  our  lives,  "We  are  strangers  in  the 
earth :  hide  not  Thy  commandments  from  us."  I  want 
you  carefully  to  consider,  then,  that  it  is  not  only 
profane  but  irrational  to  subject  our  Lord's  teaching 
to  further  criticism.    The  Sacred  Boohs  of  the  East  we 


REVELATION  THE  GUIDE  OF  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE.       81 

may  criticise ;  they  are  confessedly — at  the  very  best, 
and  in  their  very  best  parts — the  records  of  the 
speculations,  the  needs,  the  longings  of  a  remote 
antiquity;  of  men  of  exceptional  intellectual  power,  of 
great  reformers,  or  philanthropists,  or  theosophists,  or 
mystics.  But  they  have  no  autliority.  To  accept  them 
as  a  divine  rule  of  life  would  be  utterly  absurd — far  too 
absurd  for  our  eclectic  theologians.  But,  when  we 
come  to  the  Four  Gospels,  Christ  is  everything  or 
nothing ;  the  Son  of  God  or  a  bad  man ;  the  worker 
of  miracles  or  an  impostor ;  above  our  highest  homage 
or  beneath  our  contempt.  When  we  recognize  Him  as 
our  Teacher  and  Lord,  He  declares  to  us  mysteries  far 
beyond  our  comprehension:  He  gives  us  laws  and 
principles  so  exacting  that  not  a  thought,  a  word,  a 
deed,  can  possibly  escape  them.  But  He  leaves  us  no 
moral  alternative  but  to  believe  and  obey  Him.  To 
accept  His  Sermon  on  the  Mount  and  reject  His  last 
discourses;  to  accept  the  parables  and  reject  the 
miracles ;  to  accept  Him  as  "  the  perfect  blossoming  of 
humanity  "  and  reject  Him  as  "  God  of  God,  Light  of 
Light,  Very  God  of  Very  God  " — this  is  not  a  true 
development  of  Christian  truth,  it  is  mere  stupidity. 
Apart  from  the  fact  that  men  are  habitually  illogical, 
it  would  be  odious  hypocrisy  or  detestable  lying. 

The  New  Testament,  then — and  especially  the  Four 
Gospels— contains  the  record  of  a  revelation,  or  series  of 
revelations,  which  is  intended,  not  to  amuse  us,  nor 
instruct  us,  nor  furnish  material  for  speculation  and 
criticism,  but  to  command  us,  to  rule  us,  to  guide  our 
lives  in  every  particular.  What  is  left  for  us  to  do 
after  receiving  this  revelation  is,  not  to  criticise  and 
amend  and  interpolate  and  expurgate,  but  to  under- 


82       REVELATION  THE  GUIDE  OF  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE. 

stand  and  apply.  Only  too  large  a  part  of  onr  modern 
preaching  is  the  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  the  very 
idea  of  revelation.  It  implies  that  in  a  general  way, 
by  ordinary  processes,  God  has  allowed  ns  to  attain  to 
truth ;  but  that  this  "  truth  "  may,  after  all,  very  likely 
be  false,  and  that  liberty  to  disbelieve  it  is  as  essential  to 
our  religion  as  readiness  to  obey  it.  Surely  a  revelation 
of  this  kind  would  be  only  a  bitter  irony,  only  a  round- 
about and  cruel  way  of  '^hiding"  God's  "command- 
ments  f7'om  us." 

The  revelation  of  God  in  Christ — what  has  been 
revealed  to  us  of  the  Person,  and  divine  glory,  and  abso  - 
lute  Lordship  of  Christ — is  the  very  centre  of  the  Chris  - 
tian  religion.  Take  this  away  and  there  is  really  noth  - 
ing  specifically  Christian  left  to  us.  "The  Christ,"  as 
a  competitor  with  "the  Buddha"  for  the  reverence 
of  mankind,  may  be  good  or  bad,  wise  or  foolish,  but  He 
is  not  the  Christ  of  the  New  Testament.  He  is  not  in 
any  sense  the  Christ  of  history.  He  is  a  modern  mosaic ; 
not  a  Creator,  but  a  creature  ;  not  even  the  creature  of 
any  one  Divine  Hand,  but  the  resultant  of  innumerable 
unreasoning  forces — where,  whence,  when,  whither,  no 
human  ingenuity  can  divine.  An  artificial  compound, 
produced  by  the  skill  or  hopefulness  of  modern  theo- 
logical chemistry,  and  of  such  excessively  unstable 
equilibrium,  can  hardly  be  employed  in  building  up  a 
structure  of  permanent  human  life. 

But  if  whole  sects,  and  prominent  individual  teachers, 
"  play  fast  and  loose  "  with  the  Person  of  our  Lord — 
regarding  Him  as  human  when  they  want  to  modify 
His  teaching,  and  as  "  divine"  when  they  need  Him  to 
guarantee  theirs — we  need  not  wonder  that  they  are 
much  more  at  ease  in  dealing  with  the  Church  which  is 


REVELATION  THE  GUIDE  OF  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE.       83 

His  body.  If  He  be  indeed  the  very  Lord  of  men  ;  if 
He  founded  a  Church  on  certain  principles,  with  a 
definite  organization,  with  a  Creed,  and  ministers,  and 
mysteries,  then  His  Church  has  for  her  special  needs 
His  own  power.  Her  laws  are  His  laws.  She  admin- 
isters a  divine  authority,  and,  even  in  matters  "  indif- 
ferent "  in  themselves,  must  overrule  individual  caprice 
or  idleness.  And  this  is  what  nearly  all  of  us  habitu- 
ally forget.  It  is  not  necessary,  here  and  now,  to  enter 
upon  any  elaborate  argument  to  prove  that  the  Church 
of  which  we  are  members  is  a  part  of  the  true  Church 
of  Christ.  This  we  have  already  proved  or  at  least 
assumed.  Even  if  we  are  mistaken,  obedience  is  the 
safest  road  to  a  better  knowledge.  If  we  be  thoroughly 
sincere  we  may  still  be  in  error ;  we  may  be  "  otherwise 
minded"  than  fuller  light  would  justify.  But  what 
we  do  not  yet  know  "  God  will  reveal  unto  us,"  if  only 
"we  walk  by  the  same  rule"  of  devout  submission 
which  has  led  us  thus  far  towards  the  goal.  But  what 
possible  sense  or  reasonableness  can  there  be  in  con- 
necting ourselves  with  the  Christian  Church  and  then 
acting  as  if  we  were  wholly  independent?  There 
might  be  a  grim  and  awful  consistency  in  rejecting 
Christianity  altogether ;  or  in  determining  to  be  alto- 
gether outside  the  Church.  But  if  once  we  enter  the 
Church  we  have  no  moral  alternative  but  to  take  part 
in  her  worship,  to  receive  her  sacraments,  to  submit  to 
her  hierarchy,  to  carry  out  to  the  utmost  her  intentions. 
It  is  no  longer  for  us  an  open  question  whether  or  not 
we  shall  keep  Feasts  and  Fasts ;  whether  we  shall  "  go 
to  Church  "  on  Sundays,  and  whenever  else  our  honest 
business  will  allow.  To  minimize  our  Church  duties 
is  not  indeed  so  dangerous,  but  is  perhaps  even  more 


84:      REVELATION  THE  GUIDE  OF  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE. 

irrational,  because  more  inconsistent,  than  wholly  to 
repudiate  them.  The  provision  which  the  Church  has 
made,  by  the  authority  of  Christ  and  under  the  guid- 
ance of  the  Holy  Ghost,  for  our  spiritual  necessities,  is 
a  whole :  of  which  the  parts  are  in  accurate  and  beau- 
tiful proportion.  We  are  bound,  therefore,  without 
further  option  or  alternative,  not  only  to  join  in  the 
common  prayer  and  praise,  but  also  "  to  hear  sermons  "; 
not  only  to  hear  sermons,  but  to  partake,  as  often  as 
we  may  be  able,  of  the  "  Holy  Communion  of  the  Body 
and  Blood  of  our  Saviour  Christ."  We  are  not  only 
to  "  mortify,"  during  Lent,  all  our  "  evil  and  corrupt 
affections,"  but  to  rejoice  at  Easter  with  that  exceeding 
joy  with  which  "the  disciples  were  glad  when  they 
saw  the  Lord."  We  are  not  only  on  Sundays  to  accom- 
pany our  Lord  Himself  through  the  scenes  of  His 
earthly  ministry,  but  to  thank  Him  on  Saints'  Days 
for  the  inestimable  benefits  which  He  has  graciously 
bestowed  upon  us  in  His  holy  Apostles  and  martyred 
Saints,  and  in  the  mysterious  and  blessed  ministrations 
of  His  holy  Angels. 

Let  us,  then,  remember,  my  dear  brethren,  that, 
wellnigh  overwhelmed  by  the  dangers  and  uncertainties 
of  life,  we  cried  to  God,  not  for  mere  information  and 
advice,  but  for  law  and  authority.  He  has  mercifully 
answered  our  prayer.  Through  the  lawgivers  and 
prophets  of  Israel,  in  the  Incarnate  Word,  in  the  visible 
Church,  He  has  given  us  "  commandments."  Let  us 
see  to  it  that  promptly,  always,  and  unfalteringly  we 
perfectly  obey  them. 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  GOSPEL. 

I  thank  God  that  I  baptized  none  of  you,  save  Crispus  and 
Gains :  lest  any  man  should  say  that  ye  were  baptized  into  my 
name.  And  I  baptized  also  the  hoibsehold  of  Stephanas : 
besides,  I  know  not  whether  I  baptized  any  other.  For  Christ 
sent  me  not  to  baptize,  bxd  to  preach  the  Gospel :  not  in  wisdom 
of  words,  lest  the  cross  of  Christ  should  be  made  void, — I  Cobin- 
THUNS  i.  14-17. 

The  words  which  I  have  just  read  to  you — as  you 
cannot  have  failed  to  perceive — possess  a  double  interest, 
a  twofold  value.  They  express,  in  the  most  emphatic 
terms,  both  positively  and  negatively,  what  S.  Paul 
believed  his  work  as  an  Apostle  to  be.  It  loas  "to 
preach  the  Gospel,"  and  it  ivas  not  "  to  baptize."  But, 
in  addition  to  this,  they  throw  a  very  bright  light  upon 
the  nature  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  :  they  reveal  to  us  the 
mode  in  which  the  epistles  were  written ;  they  help  us 
to  understand  that  intellectual  and  spiritual  power  or 
aptitude,  whether  natural  or  supernatural,  to  which 
we  commonly  give  the  name  of  "  inspiration." 

It  is  of  course  conceivable  that  S.  Paul's  letter  to 
the  Corinthians — which  we  may  here  regard  as  a  type 
or  specimen  of  all  "  Scripture  given  by  inspiration  of 
God  " — might  have  been  written  at  the  literal  dictation 
of  the  Almighty ;  just  as  the  Apostle  himself  dictated 
his  letters  to  Tertius  or  some  other  amanuensis.  In 
that  case  every  sentence  and  word  in  the  letter  would 
have  been  literally  "  the  word  of  God."  He  would 
have  been  directly  responsible  for  the  slip  of  memory 


86  THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  GOSPEL. 

as  to  the  number  of  Corinthians  whom  S.  Paul  had 
baptized,  and  for  the  assertion  that  certain  counsels 
were  not  from  "the  Lord."  Every  departure  from 
ordinary  syntax  or  orthography  would  have  been, 
if  not  an  error — which  the  hypothesis  would  exclude — 
then  a  divine  revelation  of  the  true  rules  of  grammar 
or  of  the  structure  of  language.  What  seem  now  to  be 
the  expressions  of  S.  Paul's  own  feelings  of  anxiety  or 
alarm  or  affection,  must  have  received  a  non-natural 
interpretation,  as  affirming  not  what  S.  Paul  said  he 
felt,  but  what  Clod  knew  that  he  might  have  said  that 
he  felt.  Indeed,  the  epistle  would  have  been,  as  to 
many  of  its  most  characteristic  passages,  a  divine  work 
of  fiction  or  of  dramatic  skill,  like  the  book  Wisdom, 
which  is  attributed  to  Solomon,  or  the  various  speeches 
in  Thucydides  or  Livy.  For,  obviously,  for  the  merely 
manual  writing  of  any  book  whatever,  no  "inspiration" 
of  the  amanuensis  would  be  necessary — nothing  but  a 
knowledge  of  the  art  of  writing.  He  might  be  a  good 
man  or  a  bad,  believing  what  he  wrote  or  disbelieving 
it.  His  own  feelings  and  character  would  be  entirely 
irrelevant,  and  Avhat  he  wrote  from  dictation  would 
bear  no  trace  of  his  literary  style.  For  the  direct 
imitation  of  the  style  of  the  mnanuensis  by  the  divine 
Author  would  have  been  so  certain  to  deceive,  while 
wholly  unnecessary  for  the  purpose  of  conveying  the 
divine  revelation,  that  we  may  safely  regard  it  as  an 
impossible  hypothesis.  Nay,  if  it  were  possible  for  the 
Almighty  to  dispense  with  the  intellect,  the  character, 
the  experience  of  His  amanuensis,  it  would  have  been 
equally  possible  to  dispense  with  his  fingers.  It  would 
have  been  as  easy  to  produce  parchment  by  direct 
miracle,  as  to  produce  the  skin  of  an  animal ;  and 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  GOSPEL.  87 

intelligible  marks,  such  as  the  letters  of  an  alphabet 
arranged  in  the  words  of  a  known  language,  as  the 
forms  and  colours  of  the  petals  of  flowers  and  the  wings 
of  birds.  But  all  such  speculation  is  at  once  idle  and 
unnecessary.  God  might  have  produced  a  Bible  in 
either  of  the  modes  suggested  above,  but  certainly  it 
would  not  have  been  such  a  Bible  as  we  actually  possess. 
Moreover,  in  this  First  Ejjistle  to  the  Oorinthians  we 
have  not  only  a  very  important  part  of  the  Sacred 
Scripture,  but  we  can  see  it  in  tlie  making.  Here  is 
S.  Paul  actually  writing  it,  and  in  such  a  manner  that 
we  are  able  to  understand  not  only  the  outside,  but 
even  the  inside,  of  the  process  of  its  construction. 

The  Apostle  has  received  a  letter  from  the  Corinthian 
Church,  just  as  a  modern  rector  on  a  visit  to  Europe 
might  receive  a  letter  from  the  parishioners  he  had  left 
behind;  also,  he  had  received  a  good  deal  of  news 
about  them,  of  a  very  mixed  character,  from  certain 
persons  to  whom  he  refers  as  "them  which  are  of  the 
household  of  Chloe."  So  he  sets  himself  to  answer 
their  letter,  and  also  to  give  them  counsel  and  warning 
arising  out  of  the  information  he  had  received  about 
them  from  the  Chloe  people.  He  does  not  write  a 
treatise  On  the  Unity  of  the  Church,  or  On  the  Dress  of 
Women,  or  On  the  Peril  of  Idolatry,  or  On  Marriage,  or 
On  the  Holy  Eucharist.  We  have  well-known  treatises 
on  all  these  subjects,  in  the  writings  of  the  Fathers  and 
the  Boohs  of  Homilies,  and  elsewhere.  But  nothing 
can  be  more  unlike  such  treatises  than  S.  Paul's  Letter 
to  the  Corinthians.  It  is  a  real  letter,  to  real  people, 
answering  a  real  letter,  dealing  with  real  circumstances, 
expressing  real  feelings. 

And  it  is  full  of  S.  Paul.     His  very  style  is  as  un- 


88  THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  GOSPEL. 

mistalcable  as  the  style  of  Shakespeare,  or  Macanlay,  or 
Carlyle.  But  here  we  have  the  whole  man — his  moral 
earnestness,  his  almost  womanly  tenderness,  his  grasp 
of  great  principles,  his  skill  and  tact  in  their  applica- 
tion to  the  minutest  details  of  conduct,  his  lofty  inde- 
pendence, his  yearning  for  sympathy  and  love,  his 
childlike  simplicity  and  humility.  Indeed,  this  letter  is 
itself  the  source  of  by  far  the  largest  part  of  all  that  we 
know  of  the  Apostle's  character.  If  he  did  not  write 
this  epistle,  we  cannot  be  sure  that  he  wrote  anything 
at  all,  we  cannot  know  for  certain  what  manner  of  man 
he  was.  And,  manifestly,  whatever  his  "  inspiration  " 
may  have  been,  it  is  perfectly  certain  that  it  in  no 
degree  superseded  or  overpowered  his  own  individu- 
ality. 

Now,  how  does  S.  Paul  set  about  his  task  of  writing 
this  letter  ?  Does  he  first  of  all  claim  to  be  inspired, 
scrupulously  avoid  even  the  bare  appearance  of  over- 
sight or  mistake,  or  "  second  thoughts  "  ?  Does  he 
repress  all  that  is  personal,  so  that  the  Holy  Ghost 
alone  may  be  heard  ?  On  the  very  face  of  the  epistle, 
it  is  plain  that  he  does  nothing  of  the  kind.  He  goes 
right  on,  as  we  all  do  when  we  are  in  earnest,  when 
we  are  writing  to  friends  whom  we  love  on  subjects  in 
which  we  are  profoundly  interested.  If  he  makes  a 
mistake  he  does  not  carefully  erase  it,  he  does  not  even 
completely  correct  it ;  for  what  does  it  matter  to  the 
great  purpose  he  has  in  his  mind  ?  "I  baptized  none 
of  you  but  Crispus  and  Gains."  "  Yes,  I  did  " — "  I 
baptized  also  the  household  of  Stephanas;  besides  I 
know  not" — "it  may  have  been  so,  but  I  don't  re- 
member " — "  that  I  baptized  any  other."  For,  indeed, 
they  were  at  most  so  few  out  of  all  the  Corinthian  con- 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  GOSPEL.  89 

verts  that  nobody  could  possibly,  on  the  ground  that 
he  had  baptized  them,  accuse  S.  Paul  of  founding  a 
party,  or  "  baptizing  into  his  own  name."  So  far, 
again,  is  S.  Paul  from  confining  what  he  has  to  say 
to  subjects  of  such  absolute  moral  certainty  that  he 
can  be  confident  that  he  is  uttering  the  very  truth  and 
law  of  God — so  far  is  he  from  this,  that  he  goes  out  of 
his  way  to  remind  the  Corinthians  that  he  is  giving 
them,  in  some  cases,  not  commands,  but  counsels,  not 
the  law  of  God,  but  his  own  opinion.  "  To  the  married 
I  give  charge,  yea,  not  I,  but  the  Lord,  that  the  wife 
depart  not  from  her  husband  ....  and  that  the 
husband  leave  not  his  wife."  That  is  a  broad,  unmis- 
takable moral  principle.  It  is  the  divine  rule;  it  is 
involved  in  the  very  nature  of  marriage  ;  it  is  laid  down 
in  the  express  words  of  Christ  Himself.  But  might 
there  be  no  exceptions  ?  Is  there  nothing  so  inwardly 
contradictory  of  the  marriage-union  as  virtually  to 
annul  it,  and  leave  husband  or  wife  free  to  leave  the 
other?  Was  not  so  serious  a  difference  as  that  between 
a  believer  and  an  unbeliever  a  sufficient  excuse  for 
separation  ?  As  to  this  S.  Paul  would  only  give  his 
own  opinion:  "To  the  rest  say  I,  not  the  Lord."" 
And  later  on,  speaking  of  the  second  marriage  of  a 
widow,  he  says :  "  She  is  happier  if  she  abide  as  she  is, 
after  my  judgment;  and  I  think  that  I  have  also  the 
spirit  of  God." 

But  if  this  be  so,  if  this  letter  be  so  full  of  S.  Paul, 
so  natural,  so  devoid  of  all  claim  in  every  particular  to 
infallibility,  wherein  consists  S.  Paul's  inspiration  ? 
So  far  as  inspiration  is  miraculous  and  unique,  it  is,  of 
course,  incapable  of  definition.  For,  so  far,  by  the 
very  nature  of  the  case,  there  is  nothing  in  ordinary 


90  THE  r.IBLE  AND  THE  GOSPEL. 

experience  with  which  it  can  be  compared.  It  can  at 
the  most  be  defined  only  by  enumerating  its  effects : 
as  the  gift  or  faculty  by  which  he  who  possesses  it  is 
enabled  to  write  such  and  such  books,  to  deliver  such 
and  such  messages.  If  then  the  First  Ujnstle  to  the 
Corinthians  be  a  product  of  inspiration  —  as  most 
unquestionably  it  is — inspiration  is  not  incompatible 
with  a  slip  and  imperfection  of  memory,  with  some 
uncertainty  about  the  mind  of  the  Spirit,  and  with  the 
freest  play  of  individual  character.  Thus  we  are  really 
only  concerned  to  know  what  inspiration  can  do,  and 
not  at  all  what  its  precise  nature  is ;  nor  even  whether 
it  is  a  supernatural  gift — though  we  may  well  believe 
that  it  is — or  equivalent  in  many  respects  to  what 
we  call  genius.  Anybody  who  could  produce  a  letter 
like  S.  Paul's  to  the  Corinthians  is,  ex  vi  termini,  in- 
spired; for  the  only  meaning  of  the  word  inspiration 
is,  a  faculty,  or  exaltation  of  faculties,  natural  or 
acquired  or  supernaturally  bestotved,  by  which  its  pos- 
sessor is  enahled  to  produce  effects  of  a  certain  kind. 
And  this,  Ave  may  remark,  is  the  only  way  in  which  we 
can  define  any  ultimate  fact.  What  do  we  mean  by 
genius  ?  To  answer  this  question  we  must  ascertain 
and  carefully  examine  what  men  have  agreed  to  con- 
sider works  of  genius.  We  must  notice  what  qualities 
they  have  in  common ;  and  what  qualities  we  find,  when 
we  compare  them  with  other  works,  that  they  possess 
exclusively.  And  when  we  have,  with  sufficient  care, 
completed  this  investigation,  we  shall  still  be  unable  to 
define  what  genius  is  in  itself.  But  we  shall  have 
arrived  at  a  practically  sufficient  definition  or  descrip- 
tion of  it,  as  a  quality  or  combination  of  qualities  by 
which  he  who  possesses  it  is  enabled  to  produce  luork  of 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  GOSPEL.  91 

a  'particular  kind ;  such,  for  instance,  as  a  drama  like 
Hamlet,  or  a  musical  composition  like  Beethoven's 
CJioral  Sympliony.  We  should  determine  the  genius  of 
the  man  by  examining  his  work ;  not  the  merit  of  the 
work  by  assuming  the  genius  of  the  man. 

Indeed  this  is  the  only  way  in  which  we  can  define 
either  matter  or  spirit,  either  the  external  world  or  our 
own  mind.  The  external  world  we  believe  to  exist 
and  to  be  external  to  ourselves,  only  by  reason  of  an 
irresistible  inference  at  once  from  the  variations  and 
the  stability  of  our  mental  experiences.  The  external 
world  is  defined  by  its  effects ;  it  is  that  which  produces 
certain  sensations  and  the  like  ;  such  as  sight,  hearing, 
the  perception  of  hardness,  heat,  cold,  pain,  and  so 
forth.  Of  what  it  is  in  itself  we  have  no  knowledge 
whatever,  excepting  that  it  is:  and  if  it  could  be 
annihilated,  and  the  same  effects  be  produced  upon  our 
mental  experiences  by  incessant  miracles,  it  would  not 
be  necessary  to  change  a  single  word  in  our  vocabulary 
or  a  single  principle  or  detail  of  the  natural  sciences. 
The  whole  of  natural  science  may  be  described  as  a 
methodical  statement  of  mental  jjheoiomena  in  terms  of 
matter.  Similarly  we  have  no  knowledge  whatever  of 
the  essential  nature  of  fnind,  though  we  are  far  nearer 
to  a  knowledge  of  mind  than  to  a  knowledge  of  matter. 
For  the  operations  of  mind  we  know  directly.  They 
are  modes  of  what  we  mean  by  self ;  whereas  that 
these  modes  of  self  are  produced  by  something  external 
is  a  mere  inference,  though  an  inference  universal  and 
irresistible.  The  only  possible  definition  of  mind  is 
founded  upon  what  it  does  :  mind  is  that  which  thinks, 
and  feels,  ami  luills. 

Eemembering,  then,  these  principles  and  limitations. 


92  THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  GOSPEL. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  define  inspiration  otherwise  than 
by  its  effects.  Least  of  all  shall  I  try  to  penetrate  into 
the  secrets  of  the  supernatural,  or  to  ascertain  what 
the  special  experience  of  an  inspired  man  was,  in  so  far 
as  it  may  have  depended  upon  any  miraculous  opera- 
tion of  the  Almighty.  Nevertheless,  even  on  this  side, 
and  if  we  assume — as,  for  my  own  part,  I  believe — 
that  the  cause  of  inspiration  was  some  special  in- 
fluence exerted  upon  the  spirit  of  a  man  by  the  Spirit 
of  God  Himself,  we  may  get  some  little  light  upon 
the  nature  of  inspiration — and,  at  any  rate,  it  is 
the  only  light  that  we  can  get — by  means  of  certain 
analogies  of  ordinary  human  experience.  For  we  must 
remember  that,  whatever  the  power  of  the  Almighty 
may  be,  the  capacities  of  human  nature  are  strictly 
limited.  Whatever  revelations  He  may  think  fit  to 
make  to  a  human  being,  or  whatever  operations  He  may 
think  fit  to  perform  upon  the  human  mind,  He  can 
never  possibly  go  beyond  the  receptive  faculties  of  our 
nature  itself.  How,  then,  let  us  ask,  do  we  influence 
one  another  ?  Clearly  enough  we  can  do  this  partly 
by  means  of  our  bodies.  That  is  to  say,  we  can  employ 
physical  force,  literal  coercion,  for  the  purpose  of  in- 
ducing a  man  to  do  or  to  leave  undone  whatever  we  may 
wish  or  not  wish.  Thus,  for  instance,  if  we  want  to  pre- 
vent him  from  going  to  a  certain  place,  we  can  lock  him 
up ;  01',  on  the  contrary,  if  we  are  strong  enough,  we  can 
force  him  into  a  railroad  car  or  into  a  steamship,  and 
carry  him  whithersoever  we  will.  There  is,  however, 
nothing  spiritual  in  all  this,  and,  accordingly,  we  never 
give  to  it  the  name  of  inspiration.  If  it  had  been  the 
will  of  God  that  a  prophet,  captive  in  Babylon,  should 
know  what  was  going  on  at  the  same  time  in  desecrated 


THE  BIBLE   AND  THE  GOSPEL.  93 

Jerusalem,  He  might  have  miraculously  carried  him 
thither,  and  so  enabled  him  to  see  it  with  his  own  eyes. 
But  if  this  had  happened,  and  the  prophet  had  written 
in  consequence  ever  so  accurate  a  description  of  what 
he  saw,  nobody  would  call  him,  for  that  reason,  an 
inspired  man. 

But  we  are  perfectly  well  aware  that  we  can  influence 
one  another,  and  habitually  do,  by  altogether  different 
means.  We  can  persuade  one  another  by  arguments 
addressed  to  the  reason.  A  man  comes  to  us,  for 
instance,  entirely  convinced  that  a  certain  course  of 
conduct  is  right,  or  wise,  or  likely  to  promote  his  happi- 
ness, and  firmly  resolved  to  adopt  that  course  of  con- 
duct. He  tells  us  of  this  fixed  resolve,  and  explains  to 
us  its  reasons.  But  we  talk  with  him ;  we  show  him 
that  he  has  been  mistaken;  that  the  course  of  conduct 
he  proposes  would  not  be  wise,  or  right,  or  to  his  own 
interest ;  we  win  him  over  to  our  way  of  thinking,  and 
he  goes  away  from  us,  after  that  interview,  as  firmly 
resolved  to  avoid  that  course  of  conduct  as  he  had 
previously  been  to  pursue  it.  Now,  what  have  we 
really  done  to  this  man  ?  "We  have  really  jmt  ourselves 
into  him;  we  have  imparted  to  his  mind  those  very 
results  which  actual  experience  had  produced  upon 
our  own.  We  have  not  only  induced  him  to  alter  his 
determination,  but  we  have  changed  his  belief,  his 
opinions,  his  wishes ;  we  have  so  influenced  him  that, 
of  his  own  accord,  he  entirely  abandons  what  was  his 
fixed  resolve.  We  have  taken  possession  of  him,  and 
thenceforward,  in  that  particular  part  of  his  conduct, 
there  will  be  as  much  of  us  in  him  as  of  himself.  We 
have  put  our  spirit  into  him.  Why,  therefore,  may  we 
not  say,  in  a  word,  and  in  the  strictest  meaning  of  the 
word,  that  we  have  inspired  him  ? 


94  THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  GOSPEL. 

Indeed,  we  can  influence  one  another  in  this  purely 
spiritual  way  to  a  far  greater  extent,  and  far  more 
profoundly,  than  by  producing  any  change  in  one 
another's  opinions.  Thus,  for  instance,  we  can  induce 
people  to  love  us ;  we  can  reproduce  in  them  our  own 
tastes  and  preferences;  our  own  ways  of  looking  at 
things ;  our  own  likings  and  aversions  for  persons.  .  If 
a  man  with  any  real  character,  with  any  powers  of 
receptivity  and  assimilation,  will  carefully  examine,  at 
any  given  time,  his  inner  life,  he  will  find  it  exceed- 
ingly difficult  to  determine  how  much,  or  I  might  better 
say  how  little,  even  of  his  most  marked  characteristics 
can  be  truly  said  to  be  his  own.  Apart  from  the 
general  influence  of  other  minds  upon  his,  through 
education,  or  books,  or  conversation,  or  business  and 
family  relationships  and  the  like,  it  is  next  to  certain 
that  he  will  be  aware  that  there  are  some  two  or  three 
persons  who,  for  good  or  for  evil,  have  in  an  almost 
incalculable  degree  moulded  his  character.  Now,  what 
is  all  this,  in  the  ordinary  course  of  human  experience, 
but  the  subtle  power  which  every  human  spirit  has  of 
penetrating  into  any  other  human  spirit,  and  clinging 
to  it,  and  living  in  it,  and  reproducing  itself  in  it  in 
innumerable  and  indefinable  ways  ? 

Now,  we  must  remember  that  it  is  of  the  very  essence 
of  religion  that  there  is  a  similar  correspondence  be- 
tween the  spirit  of  man  and  God.  "Thei-e  is  a  spirit 
in  man,"  says  the  book  Joi — not,  be  it  observed,  in 
exceptional  men,  such  as  Moses  or  Isaiah  or  S.  John, 
but  in  man  simply  as  a  human  being — "and  the 
Spirit  of  the  Almighty  giveth  him  understanding." 
Similarly  we  pray  every  Sunday  in  church  that  "  God 
would  cleanse  the  thoughts  of  our  hearts  by  the  inspira- 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  GOSPEL.  95 

tion  of  His  Holy  Spirit."  And  again,  that  He  would 
"grant  to  us  His  humble  servants  that,  by  His  holy 
inspiration,  we  may  think  those  things  that  are  good 
and  by  His  merciful  guiding  may  perform  the  same." 
What  is  this  but  the  archetype  of  that  power  of  spirit 
over  spirit,  which  we  find  in  ourselves,  and  which  is  a 
very  large  part  of  what  we  mean  when  we  say  that  we 
are  in  the  image  of  God  ?  It  would  be  strange  indeed 
if  God,  who  is  a  spirit,  could  influence  the  world  and 
human  beings  only  by  methods  which  are  not  spiritual 
— by  heat,  or  light,  or  electricity,  or  gravitation — but 
could  bring  Himself  into  no  vital  contact  with  our 
reason,  or  our  affections,  or  our  wills.  But  if  He  does 
come  into  this  living  fellowship  with  us,  what  better 
name  can  we  possibly  give  to  it  than  the  very  name 
inspiration,  whether  its  effects  be  upon  our  intellects, 
or  our  feelings,  or  our  conduct;  whether  it  induces  us 
to  think  good  thoughts  and  lead  pure  lives;  or  to  help  a 
nation  to  the  birth,  like  Moses ;  or  organize  and  counsel 
Christian  Churches,  like  S.  Paul  ? 

For  it  is  surely  obvious  that  the  effects  of  this  kind 
of  influence  of  spirit  upon  spirit  may  differ,  and,  in 
fact,  are  certain  to  differ,  according  to  our  natural 
capacities  and  our  circumstances,  and  the  work  that 
we  have  to  do.  Thus  the  artificers  who  Avere  engaged 
on  the  Tabernacle  are  spoken  of  in  the  book  Exodus  as 
"wise-hearted  men,"  in  whom  "the  Lord  put  wisdom, 
and  understanding,  to  know  how  to  work  all  manner 
of  work  for  the  service  of  the  sanctuary."  They  were 
not  less  really  inspired  than  Moses  himself;  it  would 
perhaps  be  incorrect  to  say  that  they  were  more  largely 
inspired ;  but  in  Moses  God  found,  if  we  may  so  speak, 
larger  material,  a  nobler  instrument,  capable  of  far 


96  THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  GOSPiiL. 

higher  uses.  Inspiration,  therefore,  did  not  turn 
Bezaleel  and  Aholiab  into  legislators,  nor  Moses  into 
an  artisan ;  but  it  tended  to  perfect  each  according  to 
his  own  capacities,  and  for  the  work  for  which  he  was 
naturally  fitted.  I  say  that  it  tended  to  do  this ;  for 
inspiration  is  not  a  mechanical  force,  exerted  upon 
mere  matter :  it  is  a  spiritual  force,  exerted  upon  free 
spirits,  and  therefore  capable  of  being  resisted.  Thus 
"  it  came  to  pass,  as  soon  as  Moses  came  nigh  unto  the 
camp,  that  he  saw  the  calf,  and  the  dancing:  and 
Moses'  anger  waxed  hot,  and  he  cast  the  tables  out 
of  his  hands,  and  brake  them  beneath  the  mount." 
Surely  we  are  not  intended  to  suppose  that  the  hot 
anger  and  the  passionate  action  of  Moses  was  the  direct 
effect  of  a  divine  inspiration. 

And  now  let  me  return  to  S.  Paul  and  his  work  as 
an  Apostle,  including  not  only  oral  instruction,  but 
such  written  letters  as  still  remain  for  our  edification 
in  the  New  Testament  Canon.  He  was  a  man  naturally 
great,  and  exceptionally  responsive  to  divine  influences ; 
as  he  was,  indeed,  to  all  spiritual  influences.  He  lived 
habitually  in  communion  with  God,  opening  his  heart 
to  all  the  gracious  and  illuminating  operations  of  the 
Divine  Spirit — a  man  truly  inspired.  What  is  the 
effect  of  his  inspiration  ?  by  what  signs  do  we  note  its 
reality  and  its  power  ?  He  meets  with  a  slave  called 
Onesimus,  who  by  him  is  "begotten  in  his  bonds." 
The  slave  belongs  to  Philemon.  Philemon  is  a  dear 
friend  of  S.  Paul's,  and  under  such  spiritual  obligation 
to  him  that  the  Apostle  might  almost  have  demanded 
that  he  should  be  allowed  to  retain  Onesimus,  that  "in 
his  master's  behalf  he  might  minister  to  him  in  the 
bonds  of  the   Gospel."     But  S.  Paul  will  not  avail 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  GOSPEL.  97 

himself  of  this  obligation.  He  returns  Onesimns  to 
his  master.  He  recognizes  at  once  the  sacredness  of 
existing  laws,  and  the  universal  liberty  that  is  in 
Christ.  He  appeals  to  the  heart  of  Philemon,  to  his 
generosity,  to  his  Christian  spirit ;  and,  indeed,  this, 
with  expressions  of  personal  regard  and  friendly  saluta- 
tions, is  the  whole  substance  of  S.  Paul's  epistle  to 
him.  Here,  then,  are  what  we  may  call  the  ordinary 
effects  of  inspiration,  of  an  inspiration  which  we  all 
receive.  S.  Paul  "by  God's  holy  inspiration  thinks 
those  things  that  are  good,  and  by  God's  merciful  guiding 
performs  the  same."  There  is  in  the  Epistle  to  Philemon 
no  revelation  of  occult  mysteries,  not  a  word  about 
Justification  by  Faith,  or  the  Sacraments,  or  Church 
Polity.  It  is  just  such  a  letter  as  any  really  godly  man 
might  write  on  a  similar  occasion.  But  a  man  who 
was  not  godly,  or  who  was  less  responsive  to  divine 
influences,  might  not  have  written  at  all ;  or  he  might 
have  claimed  Onesimns  as  a  sort  of  ecclesiastical  due ; 
or  he  might  have  asked  a  reward  before  sending  him 
back ;  or  he  might  have  urged  that  slavery  was  so 
abolished — abolished  by  the  law  of  Christ — that  the 
legal  rights  of  Philemon  were  extinguished. 

But  S.  Paul  had  higher,  or  at  least  larger,  work  to 
do  than  wi'iting  even  such  letters  as  the  Eimtle  to 
Philemon.  He  had  "  to  preach  the  Gospel,"  to  found 
and  organize  churches,  to  set  ministers  over  them,  and 
sometimes  superintendents  over  those  ministers.  He 
had  to  instruct  the  churches,  reprove  their  misconduct, 
correct  their  errors,  stimulate  them  to  works  of  Christian 
charity.  And  if  a  man  was  to  do  this  effectually,  he 
must  be  raised  above  himself  by  habitual  communion 
with  the  Divine  Spirit.     It  might  also  be  necessary 


98  THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  GOSPEL. 

that  be  should  receive — as,  in  fact,  S.  Paul  did  receive 
— direct  revelations  of  truths  which,  otherwise,  he 
could  never  have  perceived;  though  spiritual  truths, 
even  when  made  known  by  miraciilous  communication, 
can  only  be  "  spiritually  discerned  " ;  and  inspiration  is 
not  identical  with  revelation.  What,  then,  do  we  find 
in  S.  Paul's  greater  epistles — such  as  the  First  to  the 
Corinthians — to  indicate  that  he  really  did  live  in  this 
habitual  communion  with  the  Divine  Spirit?  We  find 
great  clearness  of  intellect  and  directness  of  insight. 
But  this  we  find  also,  and  possibly  in  a  higher  degree,  in 
other  writers,  who  are  far  from  giving  any  indications 
that  they  were  peculiarly  responsive  to  divine  influence. 
The  peculiarity  of  S.  Paul's  intellectual  power  is  in  the 
fact  that  it  is  inseparable  from  a  remarkable  moral  and 
spiritual  elevation.  It  is  so  inseparable  from  these  that 
it  sometimes  seems  to  be  the  direct  effect  of  them.  He 
looks  at  life,  inward  and  outward,  from  the  divine  side; 
sees  it  as  one  might  see  it  who  had  just  come  down  from 
"  talking  with  God  face  to  face,  as  a  man  talks  with 
his  friend."  He  loves  men,  all  men,  with  a  love 
stronger  than  death,  for  he  loves  them  and  longs  for 
them  "  in  the  bowels  of  Jesus  Christ."  His  regard  for 
God  elevates  him  at  once  above  personal  vanity  and 
ambition,  and  above  the  fear  of  man  and  respect  of 
persons.  He  sees  in  every  particular  case  an  eternal 
principle,  and  therefore  he  sets  forth  these  eternal 
principles  as  sufficient  for  all  needs  of  practical 
guidance.  He  seeks  to  destroy  party  spirit,  not  by 
attempting  to  settle  disputes  or  mediate  between  the 
claims  of  rival  leaders,  nor  even  by  some  kind  of 
eclecticism,  but  by  affirming  the  infinite  worth  of  love. 
He  (loos  not  coniont  himself  with  ffiviuff  minute  diroc- 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  GOSPEL.  99 

tions  about  rites  and  ceremonies — these  he  defers  till 
"  he  shall  come  " — but  he  urges  the  necessity  of  decency 
and  order.  He  would  have  men  keep  themselves  pure 
by  the  recollection  that  they  are  the  temples  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.  Nobody  who  reads  them  can  fail  to  be 
impressed  by  these  characteristics  of  S.  Paul's  epistles. 
And  they  are  tlie  more  impressive  because  of  the  entire 
absence  of  all  boast  of  special  supernatural  inspiration 
— because  they  are  so  full  of  S.  Paul.  If  he  had  written 
treatises  on  the  same  subjects,  they  might  have  been 
even  more  perfect  than  his  letters  in  style  and  logical 
arrangement ;  but  they  would  have  lacked  that  jyersonal 
element  which  is  au  essential  condition  of  inspiration. 
A  book  cannot  be  inspired,  an  argument  cannot  be 
inspired ;  for  spirit  can  only  commune  with  spirit, 
the  living  God  with  the  living  man. 

And  if  we  judge  of  the  reality  of  inspiration  from  its 
effects  in  a  man's  life,  or  work,  or  writings,  we  sliall 
find  no  difficulty  in  understanding  why  the  Sacred 
Scriptures  have  been  set  apart,  above  all  others,  as 
"given  by  inspiration  of  God."  The  Church — any 
Church — may  give  them  authority  as  books  to  be 
accepted  as  conclusive  evidence  of  doctrine  or  discipline 
in  that  Church;  but  this  imparts  to  them  only  a 
technical  and  legal  value.  And  a  Canon  of  Scripture 
authorized  by  one  Church  may  differ  from  the  Canon 
authorized  by  another.  The  Roman  Church  adopts 
for  ecclesiastical  uses  many  of  the  Apocryphal  Books 
of  the  Old  Testament  which  we,  for  those  uses,  reject. 
But  no  Church  can  give  real,  intrinsic  value  to  any  book. 
Nor  are  the  Sacred  Books  of  the  East  or  the  Iliad  of 
Homer  less  spiritually  valuable  simply  for  lack  of  recog- 
nition by  an  ^Ecumenical  Council.     The  whole  differ- 


100  THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  GOSPEL. 

enco  is  in  the  matter  and  spirit  of  them.  It  is  possible 
— though  I  by  no  means  find  it  very  easy — to  select  from 
the  Koran,  for  instance,  many  passages  sublime  or  beau- 
tiful, or  spiritually  ennobling.  For  the  most  part  it  is 
as  dry  and  barren  as  the  Arabian  Desert.  But  in  spite 
of  "  elegant  extracts,"  who  could  say,  for  a  moment,  of 
the  Koran, "  This  book  is '  given  by  inspiration  of  God ' "? 
It  does  not  uniformly  regard  life  from  the  divine  side.  It 
does  not  produce  the  impression  that  it  is  the  result  of 
habitual  communion  with  the  Eternal.  It  is  not  raised 
above  pride,  and  passion,  and  vulgar  expediency,  and 
local  prejudices.  It  is  not  "a  possession  forever." 
It  can  never  produce,  or  even  tolerate,  a  "  universal 
religion."  And  much  less  even  can  we  discover  these 
high  qualities  in  the  Sacred  Books  of  the  Buddhists  ; 
for  if  we  go  to  the  very  bottom,  we  shall  find  that 
Buddhism  starts  from  what  is  equivalent  to  atheism, 
and  ends  in  what  is  equivalent  to  annihilation. 

And  if  it  be  urged  as  an  objection  that,  on  this 
showing,  we  may  find  evidence  of  inspiration  elsewhere 
than  in  the  Canonical  Scriptures,  I  would  reply,  first 
of  all, "  Would  that  all  the  Lord's  people  were  prophets !" 
And  again  I  would  reply,  "  As  in  the  common  life  of 
men  '  the  fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  love,  joy,  peace, 
long-snfifering,  kindness,  goodness,  faithfulness,  meek- 
ness, temperance,'  and  wherever  these  are,  in  or  out  of 
the  Church,  within  Christendom  or  outside  of  it,  there 
is  the  jSpirit ;  so  we  find  the  Spirit  also  wherever,  in 
the  literature  of  the  world,  'sacred'  or  'profane,'  we 
find  pure  truth,  ennobling  principles,  just  moral 
judgments,  divine  standards  of  character  and  conduct. 
And  wherever  the  Spirit  of  God  influences  the  spirit 
of  man,  there  is  Insinration.'^    Nor  is  the  objection  of 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  GOSPEL.  101 

whicli  I  am  speaking  of  any  j)radical  importance.  As 
a  matter  of  fact  the  inspiration  of  the  writers  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures  has  proved  itself  by  innumerable 
verifications  of  experience,  in  every  age,  in  every  land, 
in  every  class  of  society,  in  countless  millions  of  human 
hearts  and  lives. 

And  now  I  come  to  the  second  part  of  the  passage 
which  I  read  to  you  as  the  text — the  part  in  which  S. 
Paul  tells  us  what  his  work  as  an  Apostle  ims  not, 
and  also  luliat  it  was.  And  here  we  have  a  con- 
spicuous example  of  that  enriched  personality,  that 
daring  freedom,  which  cannot  fail  to  be  a  result  of  a 
true  inspiration.  A  man  less  inspired,  less  possessed 
by  the  very  spirit  of  truth,  would  never  have  ventured 
to  express  himself  with  the  audacity  of  S.  Paul.  He 
would  have  been  afraid  of  being  misunderstood  ;  per- 
haps he  would  have  been  more  nobly  afraid  of  mis- 
leading others.  He  would  have  had  in  his  mind  not 
only  the  precise  truth  he  wanted  to  affirm,  but  also 
what,  by  a  strange  perversion  of  the  meaning  of  S. 
Paul's  words,  is  called  "  the  analogy  of  the  Faith."* 
It  would  probably  never  have  occurred  to  him  to  say 
that  Christ  did  not  send  him  to  baptize ;  but  if  it  had 
occurred  to  him,  he  would  unquestionably  have  hesi- 
tated to  say  it.  He  would  have  reflected  that  Baptism 
was  a  Sacrament  of  Christ's  own  institution;  and  that 

*It  may  be  worth  while  to  add  a  note  on  this  passage, 
Romans  xii.  6.  The  grammatical  structure  is  involved,  but 
the  Greek  of  verse  6  is :  ''Exovreq  6e  xapic^f^ara  Kara,  t^v  x^piv  ri)v 
fiodliaav   7/filv   Sidipopa,    eIte    npoiprireiav   Kara    ttjv    avaloyiav    ryq 

nioTEug This  is  rendered,  in  the  Revised  Version, 

"  according  to  the  proportion  of  our  faith."  It  is  obvious  that 
the  ava^Myiav  corresponds  to  EndarL)  uc,  6  Oeo^  IfiipiaEv  fiirpov 
nicTEu^,  in  verse  3.     In  that  verse  p-hpov  ■k'icteu^  must  surely 


102  THE  BII5LE  AND  THE  GOSPEL. 

He  really  did  send  His  Apostles  to  make  discii)les  of 
all  nations,  "baptizing  them."  And  he  would  have 
been  right — exactly  for  lack  of  inspiration.  It  needs 
no  special  inspiration  to  formulate  Creeds  or  Articles 
of  Religion ;  what  is  needed  for  that  work  is  logical 
acumen  and  adroitness,  and  above  all  a  steady  and 
comprehensive  view  of  a  whole  body  of  facts  and  doc- 
trines, which  seem  at  first  sight  mutually  exclusive, 

be  taken  suhjeclively.  But  I  add  the  comment  of  Alford,  Meyer, 
and  Dr.  E.  H.  Gifford  in  "The  Speaker's  Commentary." 
Alford  says:  "According  to  the  proporlion  ....  of  faith. 
Bnt  2vhat  faith  ?  Objective  (fides  quce  creditnr),  or  subjective 
(fides  qua  creditur)  ?  The  faith,  ovoiir  faith  ?  The  comiiarison 
of  fiiTfiof  nicTEu^  above,  and  the  whole  context,  determine  it  to 
be  the  latter :  the  measure  of  our  faith  :  '  quisque  se  intra  sortis 
sua?  metas  contineat,  et  revelationis  suie  modum  teneat,  ne  unus 
sibi  omnia  scire  vidcatur,'  "  etc.,  etc.  Meyer  says  (English 
tran.slation  i^ublished  by  T.  and  T.  Clark,  Edinburgh — Romans 
ii.  259)  :  "  Conformably  to  the  pro2iortion  of  their  faith  the 
prophets  have  to  use  their  prophetic  gift— i.  e.  (comp.  verse  3), 
they  are  not  to  depart  from  the  proportional  measure  which 
tlieir  faith  has,  neither  wishing  to  exceed  it  nor  falling  short  of 
it,  but  are  to  guide  themselves  by  it,  and  are  therefore  so  to 
announce  and  interpret  the  received  anuKuXvilii^ ,  as  the  peculiar 
position  in  respect  of  faith  bestowed  upon  them,  according  to 
the  strength,  clearness,  fervour,  and  other  qualities  of  that  faith 
suggests — so  that  the  character  and  mode  of  their  speaking  is 
conformed  to  the  rules  and  limits  which  are  implied  in  the  pro- 
portion of  their  individual  degree  of  faith.  In  the  contrary 
case  they  fall,  in  respect  of  contents  and  of  form,  into  a  mode 
of  prophetic  utterance  either  excessive  and  overstrained,  or,  on 
the  other  hand,  insufficient  and  defective  (not  corresponding  to 
the  level  of  their  faith),"  etc.,  etc.  And  surely  we  all  need  to 
be  warned  not  to  exceed  our  belief  in  our  teaching,  nor  to  fall 
short  of  it.  Dr.  Gifford  (in  the  Speaker^ s  Commentary ,  Romans 
xii.  6),  says:    "  S.   Paid  prescribes  that  tlie  prophets  should 


THE  BIBLE   AND  THE  GOSPEL.  103 

and  CUT!  only  be  made  to  appear  true  or  fit  into  a 
system  after  skilful  adaptation  and  considerable 
pruning.  As  we  contrast  genius,  which  is  creative, 
with  criticism,  which  is  analytic,  so  we  may  contrast 
the  logical,  grammatical,  rhetorical  skill  which  pro- 
duces a  Creed,  with  the  inspiration  Avhich  realizes  and 
proclaims  a  Gospel.  S.  Paul  is  logical ;  but  his  logic 
is  on  fire:  it  is  the  logic  of  enthusiasm,  not  of  the 
schools.  It  takes  much  for  granted.  It  sometimes 
leaps  over  an  obvious  premiss,  or  leaves  unexpressed  a 
conclusion  which  may  be  trusted  to  draw  itself.  So 
he  said  exactly  what  he  meant  about  his  Apostolic 
work,  because  being  inspired  he  was  daring.  Clirist 
sent  me  not  to  lajdize,  hut  to  preach  the  Gosjjel. 

How  different  the  history  of  the  Church  would  have 
been  if  only  she  had  believed  S.  Paul !  how  different 
her  power  would  be  if  she  believed  him  to-day ! 
Through  long  ages  of  darkness  she  acted  as  if  tlie 
reverse  of  these  words  were  true ;  as  if  God  had  sent 
His  ministers  not  to  preach  the  Gospel,  but  to  baptize. 

exercise  their  gift  'according  to  the  proportion  of  their  faith.' 
These  words  evidently  refer  to  v.  3,  and  mean  that  the  prophets 
should  utter  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  revelation  received 
by  their  measure  of  faith,  without  exaggeration,  display  or  self- 
seeking.  '  The  rule  of  faith,' '  general  analogy  of  revealed  truth,' 
and  all  similar  renderings  whicli  make  '  faWi, '  mean  that  which 
is  to  be  believed,  are  unsuited  to  the  context  and  otherwise 
untenable."  For,  indeed,  when  S.  Paul  wrote  theUjnstle  to  the 
Romans,  where  was  there  a  body  of  authorized  dogma  which 
would  have  been  at  once  recognized  as  "  the  faith  " — the  faith 
as  distinguished  from  heresy?  Scarcely  a  more  useful  task 
could  any  of  our  younger  clergy  undertake,  for  their  own  im- 
provement, than  a  careful  examination  of  every  passage  in 
which  the  word  Triartr  occurs.  Take  Bruder's  Greek  Concordance 
for  the  purpose. 


104  THE   HIBLK  AND  THE  GOSPEL. 

Baptism  was  too  simple  to  be  understood  by  theoso- 
phists  on  the  one  hand,  or  half-civilized  and  super- 
stitions pagans  on  the  other.  An  evil  and  adulterous 
generation  wanted  not  a  Sacrament,  but  a  charm  ;  not 
"  an  outward  and  visible  sign  of  an  inward  and 
spiritual  grace,"  but  that  the  grace  itself  should  be 
outward  and  visible.  They  inverted  the  teaching  of  S. 
Peter,  and  paid  more  regard  to  the  putting  away  of  the 
filth  of  the  flesh  than  to  the  interrogation  of  a  good 
conscience  toward  God. 

The  Gospel  at  the  first  was  preached  to  individuals, 
to  grown-up  men  and  women ;  and  when  they  believed 
they  were  baptized.  They  were  "  grafted  into  the 
body  of  Christ's  Church."  Disappearing  under  the 
cleansing  waters,  they  were  buried  with  Christ ;  rising 
out  of  them,  they  arose  to  newness  of  life.  The  old  life 
was  gone,  they  were  neiu  creatures.  They  had  arisen 
and  come  to  their  Father ;  and  they  were  recognized 
as  His  children,  and  received  the  promise  of  their 
Father's  Spirit,  already  given  to  them  and  never  to  be 
withdraAvn.  Their  baptism  was  the  seal  that  marked 
them  as  God's ;  and  on  the  other  hand  it  was  their 
vow  of  allegiance  and  obedience  as  God's  faithful 
soldiers  and  servants.  Obviously  enough,  then,  their 
baptism  meant  nothing  at  all  without  the  Gospel, 
meant  nothing  at  all  to  them  but  as  they  believed  the 
Gospel.  But  what  was  true  of  them  was  true  also,  in 
its  measure,  of  their  children.  Were  those  little  ones, 
whose  angels  do  always  behold  the  face  of  the  Heavenly 
Father,  lying  under  some  ancestral  curse  ?  Were  they 
to  be  treated  as  aliens  and  outcasts  until  they  arrived 
at  years  of  discretion  ?  Were  they  to  be  allowed  to  fall 
into  sin,  and  then  to  be  with  difficulty  converted  ;  or 


THE  BIBI,E   AND  THE  GOSPEL.  105 

were  they  to  be  trained  wp  in  the  nurture  and  admoni- 
tion of  the  Lord  because  they  were  really  His  children  ? 
Christian  instinct — I  might  almost  say  parental 
instinct — answered  these  questions;  and  Infant 
Baptism  proclaimed  with  unmistakable  emphasis  the 
all-embracing  love  of  Him  who,  looking  into  every 
cradle,  into  every  child's  face,  says,  It  is  not  the  will  of 
my  Father  who  is  in  heaven  that  one  of  these  little  ones 
should  perish. 

But  when  speculation  had  exhausted  itself  upon  the 
nature  of  God  and  the  person  of  Christ ;  when  it  passed 
from  east  to  west ;  when  it  turned  from  theology  to 
anthropology,  and  began  to  occupy  itself  with  Free 
Will  and  Grace,  the  Fall  and  Original  Sin,  it  was  impos- 
sible that  the  doctrine  of  Baptism  should  maintain  its 
primitive  simplicity.  What  could  the  laver  of  regenera- 
tion, what  could  being  horn  of  water,  mean,  if  it  had 
no  reference  to  our  first  birth  as  descendants  of  the  first 
Adam ;  the  Adam  who  had  fallen  and  who  had  dragged ' 
the  whole  race  along  with  him  ?  Infant  Baptism, 
which  had  been  the  most  emphatic  symbol  of  the 
redemption  of  the  luorld,  of  the  whole  human  race,  was 
now  regarded  as  a  conclusive  evidence  that  the  whole 
world  was  not  redeemed ;  that  men  had  sinned  in 
Adam  before  they  were  born  ;  and  that  Baptism. — and 
not  the  Incarnation — was  absolutely  necessary  to 
redeem  them  from  the  curse,  to  give  them  a  new 
nature,  or  to  restore  to  them  that  which  Adam  had 
lost.  "  How  can  it  be  said  truly,"  S.  Augustine  asks 
concerning  little  children — founding  an  argument  for 
the  absolute  necessity  of  Baptism  upon  the  words  He 
that  is  not  with  Me  is  against  Me — "  how  can  it  be  said 
truly  that  they  are  against  Christ,  excepting  on  account 


]06  THE  BIULE   AND  THE  GOSrET,. 

of  sin  ?  For  it  cannot  be  on  account  of  their  body  or 
their  soul,  both  of  which  were  created  by  God.  But 
if  it  is  on  account  of  sin,  what  sin  can  it  be,  at  that 
time  of  life,  but  original  sin  ?  "* 

Thenceforward  it  became  necessary,  in  order  to 
understand  the  nature  and  effect  of  Baptism,  to  under- 
stand the  nature  of  man  before  the  Fall,  and  the  effect 
of  the  Fall  upon  that  nature.  Here  was  a  vast  region 
of  thought  in  which  speculation  might  well  run  wild ; 
for  no  human  being,  except  our  first  parents,  has  ever 
known  what  "  unfallen  "  human  nature  was.  Did  it 
consist  in  perfect  knowledge,  or  a  holy  will,  or  an 
indwelling  spirit?  Then,  by  the  undisputed  fact  of 
Adam's  transgression,  it  was  just  as  possible  to  sin 
with  these  advantages  as  without  them.  If  Adam  could 
"fall"  without  "a  corrupt  nature,"  what  could  be 
the  need  of  assuming  a  corrupt  nature  for  the  purpose 
of  accounting  for  the  repeated  "  falls  "  of  his  posterity  ? 
And  if  the  very  nature  of  any  creature  has  become  not 
only  changed,  but  inverted,  how  can  it  be  the  same 
creature  any  longer  except  in  name  ?  But,  at  a  later 
period  and  by  a  further  development,  the  nature  of  man 
as  he  is  was  represented  in  a  manner  for  which  obser- 
vation and  experience  furnish  no  warrant.  The 
Assembly's  Catechism,  to  take  a  comparatively  modern 
dogmatic  formulary,  describes  man's  present  condition 
as  one  in  which,  through  the  "corruption  of  his 
nature,"  "  he  is  utterly  indisposed,  disabled,  and  made 
opposite  unto  all  that  is  spiritually  good,  and  wholly 
inclined  to  all  evil,  and  that  continually :  which  is 
commonly  called  Original  Sin,  and  from  which  do  pro- 
ceed all  actual  transgressions."     It  may  be  very  safely 

*De  Peccatorum  Mentis,  etc.,  i.  28  (55). 


THE  15115 LE   AND  THE  GOSl'EL.  l07 

asserted  that  no  such  monster  as  this  ever  existed ;  and 
that  if  such  a  one  were  to  come  into  existence,  he 
would  be  absolutely  irresponsible,  because  absolutely 
incapable  of  either  sin  or  virtue.  But  when  the  nature 
or  effects  of  Original  Sin  were  declared  to  be  such  as 
these,  and  when  the  necessity  of  Baptism  was  grounded 
(as  by  S.  Augustine)  on  the  universality  of  Original 
Sin,  Baptism  became  absolutely  necessary  even  for 
producing  that  change  or  restoration  of  nature  without 
which  the  Gospel  would  be  wholly  unintelligible,  or 
even  utterly  repulsive.  What  was  this  but  to  invert 
the  emphatic  declaration  of  S.  Paul,  and  to  affirm  that 
Christ  sends  His  ministers  not  to  preach  the  Gospel, 
but  to  baptize?  The  Gospel  no  longer  preceded 
Baptism  and  gave  to  it  its  meaning,  but  Baptism 
preceded  the  Gospel;  because  without  it  the  very 
meaning  of  the  Gospel  must  remain  hopelessly  and 
forever  unintelligible.  But  these  perilous  speculations 
did  not  lose  their  hold  upon  the  minds  of  men  because 
facts  with  which  everybody  was  familiar  through  his 
own  self-knowledge  contradicted  them.  Not  only  had 
the  Fall  not  produced  the  consequences  which  were 
attributed  to  it;  but  those  evils,  so  far  as  they  did 
exist,  and  whencesoever  they  may  have  come,  were  not 
removed  by  Baptism.  Millions  of  baptized  persons 
were  neither  turned  away  from  sin  nor  won  to 
righteousness.  Their  baptism  produced  no  discoverable 
effect  on  their  moral  character  or  their  intellectual 
powers.  The  proof  of  their  baptism  was  not  in  their 
lives  nor  in  their  nature — for  what  could  that  be  but 
human  nature  ? — not  in  these,  but  in  the  parish  register. 
Well  may  we  even  now — more  now  than  ever — repeat 
S.  Paul's    words,   with   the   emphasis    of   S.   Paul's 


108         THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  GOSPEL. 

audacity — Christ  sent  me  not  to  hcqMze,  hut  to  preach, 
the  Gospel.  For  Baptism  without,  or  before,  tlie  Gospel 
is  not  only  worthless,  but  may  be  made  profoundly 
mischievous.  Separated  from  the  Gospel,  treated  as  a 
necessary  preliminary  to  the  Gospel,  as  the  instrument 
by  which  alone  we  can  be  made  capable  of  under- 
standing the  Gospel  or  of  accepting  it,  it  actually  sepa- 
rates us  from  Christ.  We  may  say  of  it  what  S.  Paul 
said  of  the  equally  divine  Institution  of  Circumcision  : 
Behold,  I,  Paul,  say  unto  you,  that,  if  ye  are  baptized, 
Christ  toill  jjrojit  you  nothing.  For  in  Christ  Jesus 
neither  ha^fiism  availeth  anything,  nor  being  unbaptized, 
hut  faith  icorhing  through  love. 

But  though  no  Church  in  Christendom  has  accepted, 
as  "  of  faith,"  all  the  private  opinions  even  of  so  pro- 
found a  thinker,  so  illustrious  a  doctor,  so  holy  a  saint, 
as  the  great  Augustine ;  though  we  may  believe  that 
in  his  endeavour  to  explain  what,  in  its  very  essence,  is 
a  f//sorder,  incapable  of  explanation,  he  has  gone  far 
beyond  our  verifiable  knowledge  of  facts,  and  even 
tried  to  soar  above  the  limits  of  the  faculties  of  human 
nature — it  still  remains  true  that  for  every  human 
being  there  is  one  fact,  and  for  every  Christian  there 
are  two  facts,  Avholly  beyond  dispute.  The  first  is  the 
fact  of  original  sin  ;*  the  second  is  the  universal  neces- 
sity of  Baptism,  "  where  it  may  be  had  " — and  in  almost 
every  part  of  Christendom  it  may  be  had  with  the 
utmost  possible  ease. 

Does  anybody  deny  that  every  human  being — save 
only  the  Son  of  Man— the  Very  Man— has  fallen  into 

*The  IXth  of  our  Articles  of  Religion  is  so  exceedingly 
involved  and  obscure  that  anybody  might  subscribe  it  who  is 
not  prepared  to  deny  that  "concupiscence  and  lust  liath  of 
itself  the  nature  of  sin." 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  GOSPEL.  109 

sin,  into  actual  transgression  ?*  Men  have  been  born 
in  all  sorts  of  places,  in  all  stages  of  culture,  surrounded 
by  all  sorts  of  circumstances.  In  all  these  cases  there 
has  been  endless  variety  of  individual  opportunity  ;  in 
every  case  there  has  been  deliberate  transgression,  not 
simply  of  the  law  of  God,  but  of  what  each  man, 
woman  and  child  believed  to  be  the  law  that  he  or  she 
was  bound  to  obey.  There  must  be  sometliing  to 
account  for  this  universal  disorder.  We  cannot  call  it 
a  necessity,  for  in  the  region  of  necessity  there  can  be 
no  such  thing  as  sin.  It  is  something  wholly  different 
from  a  mere  limitation  in  our  human  faculties;  for  we 
cannot  go  beyond  them,  and  they  are  themselves 
ordained  of  God.  It  is  not  necessarily  involved  in  our 
circumstances,  for  these,  at  the  worst,  can  only  oifer  us 
temptations  and  inducements  to  do  wrong,  and  our 
remorse  and  shame  testify  that  we  might  have  con- 
quered if  we  had  manfully  fought.  There  is  a  something 
— universal,  inexplicable,  real — which  is  at  the  bottom 
of  the  universal  rebelliousness  of  mankind.  We  know 
from  our  own  experience,  and  from  the  history  of  the 
whole  world,  that  if  we  would  live  as  we  ought  to  live, 
we  must  look  beyond  ourselves  and  trust  ourselves  to 
the  boundless  mercy  and  supernatural  grace  of  God. 

And  without  attempting  to  explain  the  relation  of 
Holy  Baptism  to  the  Fall;  accepting  it  simply  as  a 
means  of  grace;  a  channel  through  which  the  redeem- 
ing power  of  God  flows  down  upon  us ;  a  Sacrament 
instituted  by  Christ  Himself  and  placed  at  the  very 

*  "  S.  Augustine  says  that  all  have  sinned  '  except  the  Holy- 
Virgin  Mary,  concerning  whom,  for  the  honour  of  oiu-  Lord,  I 
wish  no  question  to  be  raised  at  all,  wlien  we  are  treating  of 
sin.'  " — Newman,  Duveloptneiii  of  Christum  Doctrine,  p.  146 
(New  Edition,  London  :  Pickering  &  Co.,  1881). 


110         THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  GOSPEL. 

gate  of  the  Divine  Kingdom ;  believing  that  he  who 
conies  to  receive  Baptism  with  reverence  and  faith, 
does  really  "  wash  away  his  sins  " ;  that  no  ordinance 
of  Christ's  appointment  can  be  a  mere  barren  sign  to 
which  no  reality  corresponds — we  may  surely  affirm 
that  he  who  refuses  to  be  baptized  is  living  in  wilful 
disobedience  to  his  true  Lord,  and  recklessly  depriving 
himself  of  sure  and  immeasurable  blessings. 

But  there  is  something  else  needed  far  more  funda- 
mental ;  something  which  shall  explain  Baptism,  and 
t]ie  Eucharist,  and  the  Church,  and  public  worship ; 
something  which  shall  determine  our  innermost 
relation  to  Almighty  God,  and  be  the  source  of  all 
righteousness — and  that  something  is  the  Gospel. 
What  really  saves  men  is  the  love  of  God,  the  grace  of 
God,  the  free  forgiveness  of  God,  a  love  measured  by 
the  Cross  of  Christ,  a  love  stronger  than  death,  and 
manifesting  itself  by  an  infinite  self-sacrifice.  This  is 
the  ultimate  fact  which  accounts  for  every  other  fact 
in  the  work  of  redeeming  men  from  the  empty  manner 
of  living  handed  down  from  their  fathers,  and  which 
itself  admits  of  no  other  explanation  than  that  God  is 
love.  We  may  ask  why  God  gathers  men  into  a  divine 
family,  into  a  Kingdom  of  Heaven ;  why  He  gives  us 
His  Spirit ;  why  He  sent  His  8on  to  he  the  Saviour  of 
the  world;  and  the  answer  is.  Because  He  loves  us.  If 
we  ask  why  He  loves  us,  there  is  no  answer  but  that 
God  is  God. 

And  the  measure  of  the  love  of  God  for  us  is  the 
Cross  of  Christ.  How  much  does  God  love  us  ?  So 
much  :  For  scarcely  for  a  7'ighteous  man  will  one  die  ; 
for  peradventure  for  the  good  man  some  one  loould  even 
dare    to    die.     But    (rod    commendcth    His  own  love 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  GOSPEL.  Ill 

totvards  us,  in  that,  while  we  were  yet  sinners,  Christ 
died  for  us.  And  it  is  the  Cross  itself,  the  love  itself, 
the  loving  God  Himself,  who  saves  us ;  not  some  expla- 
nation of  the  conditions  or  limitations  of  that  love. 
Not  in  wisdom  of  words,  lest  the  Gross  of  Christ  should 
be  made  void;  lest  we  should  try  to  find  comfort  and 
life  in  a  doctrine  of  Atonement,  or  in  a  philosophy  of  the 
plan  of  salvation,  instead  of  in  Him  who  makes  us  one 
with  God,  and  who  Himself  redeems  us  from  all 
iniquity. 

Note.— The  following  highly  suggestive  passage  is  from  Dr. 
James  Martiiieau's  Types  of  Ethical  Theory  (i.  pp.  17-19)— a 
work  whose  exceptional  merits  it  would  be  quite  superfluous  to 
commend  :  ' '  The  whole  complexion  of  thought  and  language  on 
ethical  subjects  alters  on  crossing  the  line  from  heathendom  to 
Christendom  ;  and  even  where  the  Pagan  philosopher  draws 
more  truly  and  more  severely  the  outer  boundaries  of  right  and 
wrong,  the  Christian  disciple  will  show  a  deeper  apprehension  of 
the  inner  quality  and  colouring  of  both.  How  it  was  that  the 
new  habits  of  self-knowledge  ripened  into  no  systematic  ethics, 
it  would  be  foreign  to  my  purpose  to  discuss  :  I  will  mention 
but  one  disturbing  cause,  which,  from  its  vast  and  protracted 
operation,  is  too  remarkable  to  be  overlooked.  The  Augustinian 
theology  is  founded  upon  a  sense  of  sin  so  passionate  and 
absolute  as  to  plunge  the  conscience  into  unrelieved  shadows. 
It  pledges  itself  to  find  traces  everywhere  of  the  lost  condition 
of  humanity,  in  virtue  of  which  there  is  no  longer  any  freedom 
for  good,  and  a  hopeless  taint  is  mingled  with  the  very  springs 
of  our  activity.  This  doctrine  is  evidently  the  utterance  of  a 
deep  but  despairing  moral  aspiration  ;  it  estimates  with  such 
stern  purity  the  demands  of  the  divine  holiness  upon  us,  that 
only  the  first  man,  fresh  with  unspoiled  powers,  was  capable  of 
fiilfilling  them  ;  and  since  he  was  false,  the  sole  opportunity  of 
voluntary  holiness  has  been  thrown  away,  and  we  must  live  in 
helpless  knowledge  of  obligations  which  we  cannot  discharge. 
Uencc  there  has  never  been  more  than  one  solitaiy  hour  of  real 


112  THE   BIBLE  AND  THE  GOSPEL. 

probation  for  the  human  race :  during  that  hour  there  was  a 
positive  trust  coramitted  to  a  capable  will,  and  the  young  world 
was  under  genuine  moral  administration ;  but,  ever  since,  evil 
only  has  been  possible  to  human  volition,  and  good  can  pass  no 
further  than  our  dreams.  It  follows  that,  as  the  human  game 
is  already  lost,  we  no  longer  live  a  probationary  life,  and  can 
have  no  doctrine  of  applied  ethics  which  shall  have  the  slightest 
religious  value :  the  moralities,  considered  as  divine,  are 
obsolete  as  Eden  ;  and  human  nature,  as  it  is,  can  produce  no 
voluntary  acts  that  are  not  relatively  neutral,  because  uniformly 
offensive,  to  the  sentiment  of  God.  Its  restoration  must  proceed 
from  sources  extraneous  to  the  will ;  and  unless  snatched  away 
in  some  fiery  chariot  of  grace,  it  must  gaze  in  vain  upon  the 
heaven  that  spreads  its  awful  beauty  above  the  earth.  Thus  a 
doctrine  which  begins  with  the  highest  proclamation  of  the 
divine  moral  law,  ends  with  practically  superseding  it.  The 
history  of  the  universe  opens  with  an  act  of  probation  and  closes 
with  one  of  retribution,  but  through  every  intervening  moment 
is  destitute  of  moral  conditions ;  and  man,  the  central  figure  of 
the  whole — though  a  stately  actor  at  the  first,  and  an  infinite 
recipient  or  victim  at  the  last — so  falls  through  in  the  mean- 
while between  the  powers  that  tempt  and  those  tliat  save  him, 
that  as  an  ethical  agent  he  sinks  into  nonentity,  and  becomes 
the  mere  prize  contended  for  by  the  spirits  of  darkness  and  of 
light.  In  this  system,  the  human  personality,  by  the  very 
intensity  with  which  it  burns  at  its  own  focus,  consumes  itself 
away;  and  the  very  attempt  to  idealize  the  severity  and  sanctity 
of  divine  law  does  but  cancel  it  from  the  actual,  and  banish  it 
to  the  beginning  and  end  of  time.  The  man  of  to-day  is  no  free 
individuality  at  all,  but  the  mere  meeting-point  of  opposite 
forces  foreign  to  his  will— ruined  by  nature,  rescued  by  God — 
with  no  range  of  power,  therefore  none  of  responsibility  between. 
It  is  as  if  the  Augustinian  system  took  its  doctrine  of  nature 
from  Protagoras  and  Epicurus,  and  its  doctrine  of  grace  from 
Parraenides  and  Plato  :  in  the  one  not  reaching  so  high  a  level 
as  that  of  moral  obligation ;  in  the  other  overflyuig  it  with  a 
dangerous  transcendental  wing  ;  and  combining  therefore, 
without  any  mediating  term,  the  extreme  tendencies  of  the 
pliysical  and  metaphysical  schools." 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  GOSPEL.  113 

I  think  it  may  be  well  here  to  add  an  additional  note  also,  to 
prevent  misunderstanding  of  what  I  have  said  in  this  sermon 
about  our  "  fallen  nature."  I  do  not  see  how  it  is  possible  for 
anybody,  looking  over  the  history  of  the  world  and  recollecting 
liis  own  experience,  to  doubt  the  fact  of  original  sin.  At  any 
rate,  as  I  have  said  above,  I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt  of  it 
myself  ;  nor  do  I  doubt,  in  the  least,  the  enormous  importance 
and  the  terrible  consequences  of  the  first  sin,  wherever,  when- 
ever, or  by  whomsoever  committed.  Then,  there,  and  by  the 
first  sinner,  "sin  entered  into  the  world  and  death  by  sin." 
And  remembering  that  human  beings  are  not  disconnected 
individuals,  but  constitute  a  race,  I  can  perceive  a  profoundly 
true  meaning  in  S.  Paul's  words,  referring  to  the  first  sinner, 
even  as  they  seem  to  be  represented  in  the  Vulgate  translation, 
In  quo  omnes  peccavenmt  (Rom.  v.  12).  But  what  seems  to 
me  in  the  highest  degree  dangerous  is  to  commit  ourselves  to 
some  theoretical  explanation  of  facts  which  we  cannot  help 
admitting,  but  which  we  also  acknowledge  to  be  in  the  highest 
degree  mysterious.  If  I  understand  their  meaning,  many 
theologians  have  set  themselves  to  solve  this  problem  :  How  can 
we  account  for  the  fact  that  every  human  being  whom  we  have 
ever  known  has  fallen  into  sin?  And  they  seem  to  me  to  have 
oifered  this  solution  of  the  problem  :  Every  such  person  has 
inherited  from  some  ancestor  some  kind  of  corruption,  or  taint, 
or  defect,  or  even  some  positive  tendency  towards  sin.  Un- 
questionably, all  the  instances  of  sinful  persons  that  can  be 
produced  witliin  our  experience  are  cases  of  persons  who  have 
had  sinful  ancestors.  The  induction,  therefore,  would  take 
some  such  form  as  this :  The  effect  B — namely,  actual  sin — has 
been  in  an  enormous  number  of  instances  preceded  by  the 
plicnomenou  A  —  namely,  a  sinful  ancestor.  If  this  wore 
enough  for  a  complete  induction,  we  might  safely  conclude 
tliat  A  was  the  cause  of  B.  But  this  is  not  enough  for  a  com- 
plete induction.  All  these  positive  instances  will  be  entirely 
overthrown  if  a  single  negative  instance  can  be  produced  ;  that 
is  to  say,  if  we  can  find  a  single  instance  of  a  sinful  man  who 
had  no  sinful  ancestor  ;  and  this  is  precisely  what  happens,  not 
only  in  a  particular  instance,  but  in  the  crucial  instance  in  the 


7 


114         THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  GOSPEL. 

history  of  the  wholo  human  race.  The  very  first  man  who  was 
ever  guilty  of  actual  sin  was  precisely  the  man  who  neither  had, 
nor  could  have  had,  any  inherited  corruption.  Therefore  in- 
herited corruption  does  not  account  for  actual  sin.  I  offer  this 
argument  not  as  a  contribution  to  theology,  but  as  a  reason  for 
hesitating  to  go  far  "  beyond  our  tether"  in  an  attempt  to 
explain  mysteries  which  we  ourselves  admit  to  be  utterly  inex- 
plicable. Even  theologians  would  not  be  the  worse  for  a  careful 
study  of  Mill's  Logic,  Book  III.,  Chapters  viii.  and  ix. 


SPECULATION  AND  OBEDIENCE.* 

Tlien  Peter,  turning  about,  seeth  the  disciple  u'Jmn  Jesus 
loved  following ;  tvhich  also  leaned  on  Ilis  breast  at  supper, 
and  said,  Loi-d,  which  is  he  that  betrayeth  Thee  9  Peter 
seeing  him  saith  to  Jesus,  Lord,  and  ivhat  shall  this  man  do  ? 
Jesus  saith  unto  him.  If  I  ivill  that  he  tarry  till  I  come,  what 
is  that  to  thee  9  follotv  thou  Me.—S.  John  xxi,  20-23. 

"  What  is  that  to  thee  ?"  Is  it,  then,  really  nothing 
to  us,  the  weal  or  woe,  the  ruin  or  the  salvation,  of 
those  whom  we  love  ?  Is  it  enough  that  our  own  souls 
are  safe,  and  that  "  we  can  read  0211'  title  clear  to 
mansions  in  the  sky  "  ?  Is  the  great  achievement  of 
religion  an  intenser  selfishness,  all  the  more  incurable 
because  it  has  received  a  Christian  sanction  ?  To  ask 
these  questions  is  to  answer  them.  They  have  been 
answered,  moreover,  both  in  word  and  deed,  by  all  the 
Saints  of  God,  and  by  Him  who  is  "  the  Author  and 
Finisher  of  our  faith."!  "Moses  returned  unto  the 
Lord  and  said,  Oh !  this  people  have  sinned  a  great 
sin  and  have  made  them  gods  of  gold.  Yet  now  if 
Thou  wilt  forgive  their  sin — and  if  not,  blot  me,  I  pray 
Thee,  out  of  Thy  book  which  Thou  hast  written. "| 
"I  have  great  heaviness  and  continual  sorrow  in  my 
heart,"  says  S.  Paul ;  "  for  I  could  wish  that  myself 
were  accursed  from  Christ  for  my  brethren,  my  kins- 

*  Preached  before  the  Convocation  of  Baltimore,  Md.,  May 
24th,  1878. 

t  Uebrews  xii.  2.         J  Exodus  xxxiii.  31-32. 


116  SPECULATION   AND  OBEDIENCE. 

men  according  to  the  flesh."*  "  He  that  is  greatest 
among  you,"  said  Jesus  to  His  disciples — for  even  at 
the  Last  Supper  "  there  was  a  strife  among  them  which 
of  them  should  be  accounted  the  greatest" — "let  him 
be  as  the  younger ;  and  he  that  is  chief,  as  he  that 
doth  serve.  For  ....  I  am  among  you  as  he  that 
serveth."  f  "  He  saved  others,  Himself  He  cannot 
save."  I 

But  there  is  scarcely  need  to  prove  what  nobody  will 
soberly  deny.  Even  if  S.  James's  doctrine  that  "  a 
man  is  justified  by  works  and  not  by  faith  only  "  §  has 
been  too  often  grossly  perverted,  it  still  remains  true 
that  the  works  by  which  men  have  sought  to  make 
sure  their  own  salvation  have  been  for  the  most  part 
works  for  the  good  of  others.  Crusades  for  the 
recovery  of  the  Holy  Land;  the  building  and  endow- 
ment of  cathedrals  and  religious  houses ;  Confraternities 
and  Sisterhoods  devoted  by  life-long  vows  to  the 
service  of  the  sick  and  poor ;  Masses  for  the  suffering 
souls  in  Purgatory — these,  and  such  as  these,  may 
seem  to  some  of  us,  perhaps,  the  splendid  follies  or 
contemptible  delusions  of  an  obsolete  superstition,  as 
to  others  they  have  seemed  the  fading  glories  of  a  too 
rapidly  departing  faith.  But  they  witness  to  all  of  us 
alike  what  every  age  has  recognized  as  the  very  core 
and  centre  of  Christian  life — that  "  all  our  doings 
without  charity  are  nothing  worth,"  and  that  "  he  that 
loveth  another  hath  fulfilled  the  law."  ||  Was  it  not 
well,  then,  that  S.  Peter  should  manifest  so  loving  an 
interest  in  "  the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved  "  ?  "  You 
have  told  me  of  my  future  ;  what  can  I  do  for  the  help 

*  Romans  ix.  3-3.         t  S.  Luke  xxii.  24-37. 

X  S.  Mark  xv.  31.  §  S.  James  ii.  34.  ||  Romans  xiii.  8. 


SPECULATION   AND  OBEDIENCE.  117 

and  comfort  of  my  fellow-disciple?  If  he  also  has  to 
be  '  guided  by  another  and  carried  whither  he  would 
not,'  cannot  I  protect  or  console  him?  Thou  hast 
graciously  forgiven  me,  and  granted  me  this  token  of 
Thy  grace  that  I  may  feed  Thy  sheep  and  lambs ;  is 
there  no  service  that  I  can  specially  render  for  one  so 
Itiithful  and  so  well  beloved  as  the  disciple  who  is 
following  us  ?" 

But  this,  unfortunately,  was  not  the  question  which 
S.  Peter  really  asked.  It  was  not  "  What  can  I  do  for 
this  man?"  but  "What  shall  this  man  do?"  Nay, 
rather,  it  was  a  question  more  rash  and  intrusive  still. 
It  meant  "  What  wilt  Tliou  do  with  this  man  ?  What  is 
to  be  his  future  life,  what  his  end  ?"  And  it  is  this 
question  which  our  Lord  so  emphatically,  though  so 
gently,  reproves :  "  If  I  will  that  he  tarry  till  I  come, 
what  is  that  to  thee  ?  Follow  thou  Me."  Our  duties 
to  our  neighbours  arise,  indeed,  out  of  the  arrangements 
of  God's  providence ;  but  this  is  true  not  only  of  their 
form,  but  also,  and  equally,  of  their  occasion  and  their 
time.  Our  duties  yesterday,  whether  discharged  or 
neglected,  are  now  over.  Our  duties  to-morrow  are  not 
yet  come ;  and  sufficient  for  the  day  are  its  own  evil, 
its  own  responsibilities,  even  its  own  good.  Religion 
is,  for  the  immense  majority  of  mankind,  through  the 
whole  of  life — and  for  everybody  in  by  far  the  greater 
part  of  his  life — not  speculative,  but  practical.  And 
whereas  the  possible  results  of  speculation  are  forever 
widening,  as  we  read  and  think  and  argue,  till  at  last 
we  almost  begin  to  doubt  whether  there  is  any  answer 
to  our  questions,  any  solution  of  the  riddle  of  life,  any 
sure  dogma,  any  discoverable  truth,  the  alternatives 
of  duty  become  narrower  and  narrower  as  the  necessity 


118  SPECULATION   AND   OBEDIENCE, 

of  action  is  pressed  closer  and  closer  upon  us,  till  one 
single  path  at  last  is  left  open  to  us,  and  all  our  uncer- 
tainties and  hesitations  are  silenced  by  "  Follow  thou 
Me." 

If  only,  my  dear  brethren,  we  could  believe  it ! 
But  it  must  be  obvious  to  every  one  of  us  that  Chris- 
tian people  are  for  the  most  part  of  a  far  different  way 
of  thinking.  They  are  not  sunk  so  low,  indeed,  as  to 
repudiate  obedience,  but  they  prefer  what  they  call 
"  the  right  of  private  judgment."  When  an  enlight- 
ened Christian  man  has  duly  examined  the  claims  of 
all  rival  authorities ;  when  he  has  critically  investi- 
gated the  theology  and  ethics,  the  science  and  common 
sense,  of  all  competing  religions ;  when,  in  a  word,  he 
has  accomplished  individually  and  separately  what  has 
never  yet  been  accomplislied  by  the  Avhole  human  race 
put  together — then,  and  then  only,  we  are  assured  he 
will  be  in  a  position  to  begin  to  determine  the  first  of 
his  lyractical  religions  duties.  Then,  without  bias  or 
prejudice,  he  can  offer  his  first  rational  prayer;  repeat 
for  the  first  time  a  creed  that  he  really  means ;  sing 
his  first  unimpassioned  hymn  ;  adore  a  God  whom  he 
understands ;  look  forward,  with  a  fearless  and  aweless 
eye,  into  a  future  that  he  has  weighed  and  measured 
and  analyzed.  He  will  have  constructed  a  religion  of 
his  own,  liable  indeed  to  reconstruction;  provisional, 
modest,  undogmatic ;  held,  therefore,  loosely,  with  an 
"openness  to  conviction"  that  it  may  be  mere  moon- 
shine and  absurdity — but  fairly  available  for  such  very 
moderate  practical  application  as  belongs  to  that 
residuum  of  real  religion  which  is  left  when  you  have 
removed,  by  precipitation  or  evaporation,  everything  in 
human  life  that  anybody  cares  for.    Is  religion,  forsooth, 


SPECULATION  AND   OBEDIENCE.  119 

to  control  education,  or  marriage,  or  divorce,  or  social 
decency,  or  the  ethics  of  "  the  press,"  or  politics  ? 
Surely  to  admit  this  would  be  to  roll  back  the  wheels 
of  Time.  Religion  is,  therefore,  nothing  more  than  a 
working  theory  about  the  possible  origin  and  the 
possible  destiny  of  human  beings— admitting,  for  the 
sake  of  argument,  that  the  soul  is  not  a  mere  function 
of  the  brain,  and  that  a  living  God  is  the  most 
plausible  hypothesis  to  account  for  the  phenomena  of 
Nature.  But  the  grand  characteristic  of  the  religion 
of  "  private  judgment,"  the  eclectic  religion  of  modern 
liberalism,  is  this — it  is  our  own  creation ;  it  does  not 
find  lis,  but  we  it.  It  has  no  authority  over  us,  for  we 
made  it  ourselves  ;  and  when  we  dislike  it,  we  can 
reform  or  repeal  it.  It  is  the  exact  contradictory  of 
the  religion  described  by  Christ,  and  again  and  again 
in  Holy  Scripture.  "  Ye  have  not  chosen  Me,"  says 
our  Lord  to  His  disciples,  "  but  I  have  chosen  you  and 
ordained  you  " — not  to  speculate  and  argue,  but — "  that 
ye  should  go  and  bring  forth  fruit."* 

A  comparatively  harmless  illustration  of  the  preva- 
lent tendency  to  prefer  speculation  to  obedience,  theory 
to  practice,  may  be  found  in  the  renewed  discussion  of 
the  future  state  of  the  great  majority  of  those  who  die 
in  sin.  They  are  not,  and  nobody  pretends  that  they 
are,  what  we  call  "  fit  for  heaven  " ;  but  must  they  for- 
ever and  ever  burn  in  hell  ?  One  of  the  Canons  of 
Westminster  preached,  a  few  months  ago,t  and  pub- 
lished, a  series  of  impassioned  sermons  on  "  Eter- 
nal Hope."  These  sermons  have  been  discussed  in 
short,  half-conversational  papers  in  the  Confemjjorary 
Kevieio,  in  The   North   American  Review,  and  else- 

*H.  Jolmxv.  16,  tl878. 


120  SfECULATION   AND  OBEDIENCE. 

where.  Even  the  daily  press  has  done  its  best,  in  this 
emergency,  to  help  us  to  constmct  a  heaven  and  a  hell 
that  shall  do  no  violence  to  modern,  and  of  course 
enlightened,  public  opinion.  But  putting  aside — 
though,  alas!  only  too  suggestive — the  grotesque 
absurdities  of  this  popularized  controversy,  and 
admitting  also  the  earnest  piety  and  sensitive  jealousy 
for  the  glory  of  God's  mercy  and  truth  which  it  has 
unquestionably  manifested,  it  seems  to  me  a  very  con- 
spicuous example  of  the  so-oft-repeated  question, 
"  Lord,  and  what  shall  this  man  do  ?" 

Our  own  Church,  indeed,  has  committed  us  to  no 
definition  of  the  place  or  mode  of  future  punishment. 
Modifying  ancient,  and  indeed  Catholic,  usages  so  far 
as  was  perhaps  required  by  local  peculiarities  or 
necessities,  she  has  avoided  any  public  services  or 
ceremonies  that  might  seem  to  justify  the  extrava- 
gances either  of  dogma  or  practice  which  find  their 
formal  expression  in  "  the  Romish  doctrine  concerning 
Purgatory,"  and  in  "  Indulgences."  But  she  neither 
denies  the  Communion  of  Saints  nor  limits  the  mercy 
of  God.  Our  longings,  hopes,  anxieties  concerning  the 
unseen  world  and  the  intermediate  state,  she  leaves  to 
our  private  devotions.  He  who  presumes  to  judge 
"those  who  are  without";  he  who  determines  what 
ignorance  is  or  is  not  "  invincible " ;  he  who  affirms 
that  spiritual  suicide  is  impossible ;  he  who  measures 
the  power  of  "  faith,  even  though  so  little  as  a  grahi  of 
mustard-seed,"  or  the  efficacy  even  of  a  dying  cry, 
"  God  be  merciful  to  me,  a  sinner !" — seems  to  me  to 
overpass,  with  a  cruel  presumption,  the  boundaries  of 
orthodoxy  no  less  than  of  humility.  Therefore,  con- 
cerning any  individual,  to  hope  to  the  end ;  to  abstain 


SPECULATION  AND  OBEDIENCE.  121 

from  judgment;  to  seek  relief  in  prayer;  to  supersede 
speculation  by  "glorying  in  the  Cross  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ " ;  nothing  to  extenuate  and  to  set  down 
naught  in  malice;  above  all,  to  trust  utterly  in  the 
justice  and  mercy  of  God — this  assuredly  is  at  once 
our  duty  and  our  comfort.  But  our  periodic  fevers  of 
speculation  do  not  permit  us  to  be  content  with  this. 
We  must  needs  have  a  perfect  theory,  an  answer  to 
every  possible  question,  a  reply  to  the  inquiry,  "  Lord, 
and  what  shall  this  man  do  ?"  "  Is  my  father  saved  ? 
Am  I  to  believe  that  myoion  mother  is  in  hell  forever?" 
And  we  often  hear  such  rash  assertions  as  these  :  "  If 
I  am  to  believe  that  my  mother  is  in  hell,  I  must  give 
up  religion."  Are,  then,  our  relations  to  one  another 
the  cause,  instead  of  the  effects,  of  our  relation  to 
Almighty  God  ?  and  will  it  be  enough  to  urge  at  the 
judgment-seat  of  Christ,  as  a  suflficient  atonement  for 
a  godless  life,  "  My  punishment  will  torment  also  the 
affectionate  hearts  of  those  who  love  me  "  ?  Ah !  my 
brethren,  has  it  not  already  broken  the  heart  of  Him 
who  died  on  Calvary  ? 

For  the  controversy  of  which  I  am  now  speaking  is 
not  practical,  but  speculative.  If  we  could  settle  it, 
and  answer  every  question  which  really  does  torment 
the  hearts  of  a  few  earnest  believers,  how  would  our 
duties  be  altered  one  jot  or  one  tittle  ?  About  the 
real  responsibilities  of  other  people  we  know  absolutely 
nothing ;  with  our  own  we  are  perfectly  familiar.  We 
know  the  terrific  power  of  our  own  habits ;  we  know 
too  well  how  often  the  "  hot  iron  "  sears  our  own  con- 
science. We  know  how  the  devil  leads  us  captive  at 
hisAvill.  We  have  experienced  the  bondage  of  iniquity. 
We  know  how  habits,  for  evil  as  well  as  for  goo^, 


122  SPECULATION  AND  OBEDIENCE. 

harden  into  character,  and  become  a  new  and  an 
accursed  nature.  And  are  we,  then,  to  defer  moral 
strain  and  effort  until  God  thinks  fit  to  satisfy  vs  that 
the  destiny  of  some  antediluvian  sinner  is  just  ?  Are 
we  to  pause  in  our  resolute  obedience  until  we  are 
enabled  to  calculate  to  an  infinitesimal  fraction  the 
profit  and  loss  of  sin  ?  You  need  no  such  calculation, 
my  brother.  As  to  the  buried  generations  of  the  past, 
as  to  the  millions  of  the  heathen,  as  to  the  ignorant 
masses  of  the  population  of  all  great  cities,  as  to  our 
own  kith  and  kin  who  are  "  behind  the  veil  " — "  what 
is  that  to  thee  ?"  Yoic  can  render  them  no  aid  other- 
wise, it  may  be,  than  by  humble  prayer.  Nor  would 
their  state  be  bettered  if  they  could  be  placed  in  your 
hands  instead  of  God's.  "  Folloiu  thou  Me."  If  you 
sin  you  will  die.  In  this  world,  and  in  every  other 
world,  "  the  wages  of  sin  is  death."  If  you  love  other 
people,  keep  them,  by  precept  and  example,  out  of  sin. 
And  if  you  fail  in  this  service  of  others,  remember  that 
you  still  have  the  same  law  to  live  by,  the  same  judg- 
ment to  await. 

But  this  speculation  about  the  future  state  seems  to 
me,  as  I  have  said,  a  comparatively  harmless  specula- 
tion— partly  because  the  Church  has  left  this  whole 
subject  very  largely  undefined ;  and  partly  because  no 
theory  about  the  future  state,  outside  the  ordinary 
belief  among  Protestants,  has  yet  found  acceptance 
which  does  not  include  a  severe  punishment  or  an 
excruciating  discipline  for  those  who,  having  died  in 
sin,  are  to  be  saved  at  last.  Nay  more,  this  contro- 
versy may  render  us  the  very  important  service  of 
recalling  us  to  that  older  doctrine  of  the  intermediate 
state  which  Calvinism  and  Puritanism  have  done  so 


SPECULATION   AND  OBEDIENCE.  123 

much  to  obliterate.  But,  unfortunately,  there  are  on 
all  sides  of  us  not  so  much  theories  as  habits  of  thought 
— not  so  much  particular  speculations  as  the  love  and 
approval  of  speculation  itself  as  a  peculiar  privilege  or 
right  or  even  duty — which  may  well  justify  extreme 
alarm.  The  reckless  demands  of  private  judgment 
have  been  advancing,  even  in  the  Church,  by  gigantic 
strides,  until  we  seem  to  be  threatened  almost  with  an 
epidemic  delirium  of  conscience.  "  The  popular  view 
of  private  judgment,"  said  the  author  of  the  Avell-known 
Lectures  on  the  Prophetical  Office  of  the  Church, 
published  forty  years  ago,  "  is  as  follows:  that  every 
Christian  has  the  right  of  making  up  his  mind  for 
himself  Avhat  he  is  to  believe,  from  personal  and 
private  study  of  the  Scriptures,  This,  I  suppose,  is 
the  fairest  account  to  give  of  it,  though  sometimes 
private  judgment  is  considered  rather  as  the  necessary 
duty  than  the  privilege  of  the  Christian,  and  a  slur  is 
cast  on  hereditary  religion  as  worthless  or  absurd ;  and 
much  is  said  in  praise  of  independence  of  mind,  free 
inquiry,  the  resolution  to  judge  for  ourselves,  and  the 
enlightened  and  spiritual  temper  which  these  things 
are  supposed  to  produce.  But  this  notion  is  so  very 
preposterous,  there  is  something  so  very  strange  and 
wild  in  maintaining  that  every  individual  Christian, 
rich  and  poor,  learned  and  unlearned,  young  and  old, 
in  order  to  have  an  intelligent  faith,  must  have  formally 
examined,  deliberated  and  passed  sentence  upon  the 
meaning  of  Scripture  for  himself,  and  that  in  the 
highest  and  most  delicate  and  mysterious  matters  of 
faith,  that  I  am  unable  either  to  discuss  or  even  to 
impute  such  an  oj)inion  to  another,  in  spite  of  the 
large  and  startling  declarations  which  men  make  on 


12i  SPECULATION   AND  OBEDIENCE. 

the  subject."*  Alas !  during  forty  years  there  has 
been  much  moving  forward,  if  not  progress.  The 
Sacred  Scriptures  are  less  and  less  read  and  studied ; 
but  they  are  handled  with  an  ever-increasing  irrever- 
ence. Lads  and  lasses  dance  now  on  the  solemn  spaces 
which  the  saints  of  old  did  not  venture  to  approach 
until  they  had  put  oflF  the  shoes  from  their  feet, 
"  because  the  ground  was  holy."  The  earlier  Protest- 
ants, who  were,  not  inexcusably,  jealous  of  Church 
authority,  were  at  least  willing  to  abide  by  their  own 
judgment  of  the  judgment  of  Scripture.  Their  suc- 
cessors have  far  loftier  souls.  They  claim  the  right  to 
begin  at  the  beginning — personally,  were  it  only  possi- 
ble, to  inspect  the  manger  in  Bethlehem;  to  cross- 
examine  the  Blessed  Virgin ;  and  to  demand  a  repeti- 
tion, for  every  generation  and  for  every  individual,  of 
the  evidence  which  was  vouchsafed  to  S.  Thomas. 
"  Am  I  to  believe  the  Eesurrection,"  says  one,  "because 
S.  Paul  affirms  it?  I  must  be  myself  convinced." 
Even  so.  Everybody  must  be  omnipresent  and 
omniscient ;  and  we  may  begin  to  be  religious  when 
we  have  superseded  the  necessity  for  religion. 

Far  other  is  the  discipline  by  which  God  guides  us  in 
every  other  department  of  life.  We  begin  life,  and  we 
begin  every  fresh  stage  in  life,  not  with  knowledge,  but 
with  faith,  and  "we  add  to  our  faith  virtue."  The 
experience  of  the  past  is  stored  up  for  our  use  in 
the  customs,  the  laws,  the  morality,  the  institutions  of 
the  society  into  which  we  are  born  ;  and  these  treasures 
are  dispensed  to  us  by  parents  and  guardians,  tutors 
and  schoolmasters,  and  civil  governors.  To  impart 
this  store  of  accumulated  wisdom  to  each  new  genera- 

*  Newman's  Via  Media,  I.,  145  (1877). 


SPECULATION    AND  OBEDIENCE.  125 

tion  is  precisely  what  we  mean  by  education.  As  we 
grow  to  maturity  we  can  reflect  upon  what  we  have 
learned.  We  begin  to  understand  why,  as  well  as  to 
perceive  wliat.  We  can  speculate,  if  we  choose,  upon 
the  innermost  nature  and  sure  test  of  right  and  wrong ; 
on  the  conditions  of  permanent  political  greatness  ;  on 
domestic  and  social  morality.  But  long  before  we 
arrive  either  at  the  ability  or  the  inclination  for  these 
refined  and  ennobling  inquiries,  we  have  been  disci- 
plined into  obedience.  The  demands  of  the  moral 
law  have  become  for  us  the  undisputed  postulates  of 
life.  We  may  theorize  on  the  origin  of  property,  and 
the  wisest  distribution  of  wealth,  but  nobody  proposes 
to  repeal  the  commandment  "Thou  shalt  not  steal." 
Our  judgment  has  been  prejudiced  incurably  in  favour 
of  law  and  right.  And  all  this  is  the  result  not  of 
argument,  but  of  authority  and  of  obedience.  More- 
over, it  will  scarcely  be  denied  that  upon  this  founda- 
tion of  authority  and  obedience — preceding  and  for 
the  most  part  wholly  superseding  individual  speculation 
and  inquiry — the  stability  of  society  rests. 

Yet  against  this  divine  arrangement  for  the  educa- 
tion of  each  generation  of  the  human  race  almost  every 
one  of  the  arguments  might  be  urged  which  seem  to 
many  people  so  conclusive  against  Church  authority. 
We  insist  upon  obedience  in  the  ordinary  training  and 
government  of  human  beings  long  before  we  have  pro- 
duced conviction  in  the  intellect  or  secured  the 
approval  of  conscience;  and  we  do  this  though  we  are 
neither  infallible  ourselves,  nor  are  the  laws  and 
customs  which  we  enforce  infallible.  Sometimes  the 
laws  press  unequally  or  too  hardly;  sometimes  we 
misinterpret  or  misapply  them.     But  nevertheless  we 


126  SPECULATION  AND  OBEDIENCE. 

still  demand  obedience  and  maintain  our  authority. 
And  this  is  a  true  wisdom  which  is  justified  of  all  her 
children ;  it  is  justified,  even  more  emphatically,  by 
those  who  have  repudiated  it.  There  is  no  surer  sign 
of  the  approaching  dissolution  of  a  nation  than  the 
relaxation  of  educational  discipline;  the  substitution 
of  persuasion  for  authority,  of  liberty  for  order. 

Is  it  reasonable,  then,  to  expect  that  in  the  Church, 
and  in  the  spiritual  education  of  the  race,  Almighty 
God  will  reverse  that  divine  method  of  education 
which  He  has  inwoven  in  human  nature  itself  and  in 
the  very  fabric  of  society  ?  Is  faith,  which  everywhere 
else  is  necessary,  the  condition  of  all  knowledge,  the 
starting-point  of  all  progress,  the  justification  of  all 
obedience — is  this  faith  to  become  in  religion  an 
absurdity,  the  fruit  of  knowledge  instead  of  its  root, 
the  goal  instead  of  the  starting-point?  Is  it  an 
unmeasurable  blessing  that  we  are  born  into  the  world 
the  heirs  of  a  vast  inheritance  of  law  and  morality, 
under  the  protection  of  those  Avho  are  to  put  us  into 
actual  possession  of  these  treasures,  and  train  us  to  the 
use  of  them  ?  And  can  it  be,  at  the  same  time,  a 
misfortune  that  we  are  also  born  of  Christian  parents, 
and  made  heirs  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven — a  Church 
polity,  a  creed,  a  ritual,  a  liturgy;  and  that  we  are 
placed  under  the  protection  of  those  who  will  put  us 
into  the  actual  possession  of  these  treasures  and  train 
us  to  the  use  of  them  f  Is  the  institution  of  property 
to  be  beyond  discussion,  and  the  existence  of  God  an 
open  question?  Is  it  the  highest  wisdom  to  prejudice, 
bias,  fortify  the  mind  in  favour  of  law  and  order,  so 
that  it  may  be  safe  forever  from  plausible  sophistries 
of  rebellion  and  vice  ?    And  is  it  mean  and  irrational  to 


SPECULATION  AND  OBEDIENCE.  127 

prejudice,  bias,  fortify  the  mind  in  favour  of  the  creed 
and  the  Church,  so  that  it  may  be  safe  forever  from 
plausible  sophistries  of  heresy  and  schism  and  godless- 
ness?  Do  you  ask  for  an  infallible  guide  in  religion 
before  you  will  submit  to  be  directed  in  your  belief  or 
worship?  Where  is  your  infallible  guide  in  morals 
and  legislation  ?  Do  you  object  that  your  parish  priest 
is  no  wiser  or  better  than  yourself  or  your  neighbours? 
You  may  say  the  same  of  a  justice  of  the  peace. 
Is  the  Convention  of  the  Diocese  of  Maryland  a  sort 
of  "  earthen  vessel "?  So  is  the  Legislature  of  the 
State  of  Maryland.  Are  (Ecumenical  Councils  liable 
to  err  ?  So,  it  has  been  whispered,  is  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States. 

It  cannot  be  doubted  that  a  process  of  disintegration 
is  going  on    rapidly  not  only  among  the  religious 
opinions  of  ordinary  society,  but  even  in  the  Church 
itself.    In  any  uncertainty  or  dispute  there  seems  less 
and  less  recognition  of  any  authoritative  standard. 
People  seem  determined  in  their  conduct,  in  matters 
religious  and  ecclesiastical,  by  their  own  caprice  or 
impulse.  "  They  don't,  for  their  part,  prefer  this  or  that ; 
it  goes  a  little  further  or  stops  a  little  sooner  than  suits 
their  taste.     They  admit  that  it  may  suit  other  people." 
As  if  the  conduct  of  divine  service,  or  the  doctrine  of 
the  Holy  Eacharist,  or  the  observance  of  holy  seasons, 
were  intrinsically  of  no  more  importance  than  the 
changing  fashions  in  millinery,  and  to  be  decided  by 
the  same  appeal  to  whims  and  fancies !     Does  even  the 
silliest  person  propose  that  in  case  of  a  difference  of 
opinion  the  Church  should  give  way?     If  we  don't 
like  to  keep  Saints'  Days,  for  instance,  is  it  more 
reasonable  that  Saints'  Days  should  be  abolished  or 


128  SPECULATION   AND  OBEDIENCE. 

that  we  should  mend  our  behaviour  ?  "  But,"  you 
reply,  "we  don't  want  anything  abolished;  Ave  act 
according  to  our  own  views,  and  leave  other  people  to 
do  the  same."  I  will  put  this  answer  into  a  form  more 
strictly  accurate  and  honest.  "  The  Church  is  a 
highly  respectable  religious  society,  to  which  we  are, 
on  the  whole,  proud  to  belong.  It  is  far  more  orderly 
and  conservative  than  the  extreme  Protestant  sects. 
On  the  other  hand  it  has  no  nonsense — none  of  the 
extremes  of  Kome.  It  suggests  rather  than  commands. 
It  leaves  a  broad  margin  for  individual  peculiarities 
and'  preferences.  And,  at  any  rate,  nobody  in  our 
Church  pretends  to  be  infallible.  Besides,  in  case  of 
dangerous  innovations  or  disreputable  slovenliness,  we 
sooner  or  later  get  matters  '  fixed '  in  the  General  Con- 
vention. We  have  Bishops  and  Canons  and  Eubrics, 
and  excellent  customs  and  usages — but,  after  all,  like 
all  modern  or  modernized  institutions,  the  Church  is 
subject  to  the  will  of  the  people.  We  never  shall  come 
to  that,  of  course,  but  if  any  controversy  arose  on  the 
subject,  our  constitution  is  such  that  even  the  very 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  could  be  modified  or  expunged 
to  suit  modern  progress."  This  is  the  Church  theory 
that  is  really  the  most  popular,  though  even  the  most 
reckless  would  hesitate  to  carry  it  out  in  practice  to  its 
logical  conclusions.  Still  it  has  power  enough  to 
paralyze  the  Church's  work.  From  such  a  theory,  and 
from  the  languor  and  laxity  which  are  its  eftects, 
neither  Eome  nor  Sectarianism  has  anything  to  fear. 
Sectarianism  has  nothing  to  fear  from  it,  for  it  is 
Sectarianism.  Nor  does  Rome  fear  Sectarianism,whether 
within  or  without  the  Church.  She  fears  only  a 
Catholicism    more    ancient,    more    submissive,   more 


SPECULATION   AND  OBEDIENCE.  129 

unadulterated  than  her  own.  But  it  must  be  sub- 
missive. The  Church  is  not  a  debating  society :  it  is  a 
body,  a  kingdom.  Its  dogmas  are  not  for  discussion, 
but  for  use.  Its  Divine  Lord  is  a  Lord,  and  He  does 
not  propose  to  us  that  we  shall  examine  His  title  over 
and  over  again,  and  keep  Him  waiting  for  His  own 
throne  till  we  have  made  convenient  modifications  in 
His  royal  prerogative.  "He  speaks  with  authority." 
"  Follow  thou  Me."  "  If  any  man  is  willing*  to  do 
God's  luill,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine."  This  was 
the  claim  of  Christ  at  the  very  beginning,  when  He 
called  Matthew  from  the  receipt  of  custom  and  the 
sons  of  Zebedee  from  their  nets.  This  was  the  claim 
of  the  Apostles,  in  His  name,  when  they  first  preached 
the  Gospel  and  gathered  together  congregations  of 
believers,  and  ordained  elders,  and  set  in  order  what 
was  necessary  for  decency  and  edification  in  the  divine 
service.  It  may  seem  very  natural  or  even  praise- 
worthy to  criticise  the  foundations  of  our  religion,  and 
criticism  implies  the  right  to  reject  what  is  found 
wanting.  None  the  less  for  that  did  S.  Paul  write  to 
the  Gralatians :  "  If  I  or  an  angel  from  Heaven  preach 
any  other  gospel,  let  him  be  accursed."  The  perfect 
organization  of  the  Church,  as  of  any  human  society, 
will  curtail  the  liberties  of  some  for  the  greater  good 
of  all.  To  escape  the  scandal  of  the  Corinthian 
assemblies  we  must  abolish  their  license.  There  will 
thus  be  less  redundancy  of  life,  but  a  deeper  and 
steadier  current.  There  will  be  less  inventiveness  and 
originality,  but  more  repose  and  surer  permanence. 
And  as  time  goes  by,  as  the  Apostles  one  after  another 
are  called  to  their  heavenly  rest,  we  find  a  due  pro- 

*S.  John  vii.  17.     iav  nq  di/.rj  to  diTiT/fja  avrov  tzoleIv,  etc. 


130  SPECULATION   AND  OBEDIENCE. 

vision  made  for  the  continuance  of  their  authority  and 
work — and  in  fact  the  legacy  of  S.  John  is  the  per- 
fected Episcopacy.*  Nay,  even  by  the  close  of  tlie 
second  century,  to  quote  the  words  of  Canon  Lightf  oot,t 
"Episcopacy  is  so  inseparably  interwoven  with  all  the 
traditions  and  beliefs  of  men  like  Irenseus  and  Tertul- 
lian,  that  they  betray  no  knowledge  of  a  time  when  it 

was    not Their    silence    suggests    a    strong 

negative  presumption  that  while  every  other  point  of 
doctrine  or  practice  was  eagerly  canvassed,  the  form  of 
Church  government  alone  scarcely  came  under  discus- 
sion."! As  the  government  of  the  Church  was  con- 
solidated, so  was  its  doctrine  protected.  The  New 
Testament  Canon  was  formed.  The  far  larger  mass  of 
the  oral  teaching  of  the  Apostles  served  the  purpose  of 
guiding  the  interpretation  of  their  scanty  writings. 
Their  well-remembered  practices  came  to  be  embodied 
in  Canons  and  Liturgies  and  Sacred  Offices.  Bishop 
handed  down  to  succeeding  Bishop  the  revered  and 
invaluable  deposit — Synod  to  Synod  —  Council  to 
Council.  As  heresies  and  schisms  arose,  they  were 
met,  one  after  another,  by  an  appeal  to  what  had 
always  been  believed  and  to  what  had  always  been  done. 
Every  new  definition  was  a  definition  of  old  truth,  and 
the  Christian  literature  of  the  first  four  centuries  con- 
tains a  mass  of  evidence  as  to  the  creed  and  discipline 
and  ritual  of  the  Church  from  which  there  can  be  no 
appeal  but  by  questioning  the  authority  of  the  Apostles 
and  the  divine  foundation  of  the  Church  itself.  Into 
this  grand  inheritance,  maintained  substantially  with- 
out change  notwithstanding  passing  corruptions  and 

*Lightfoot's  E^jistle  to  the  Philippians,  209-212  (2d  edition), 
t  Now  Bishop.  X  Ibid.,  p.  225. 


SPECULATION  AND  OBEDIENCE.  131 

vigorous  reforms,  we  are  born.  Our  Bishops  are  such 
in  Apostolic  succession,  in  authority,  in  jurisdiction, 
as  were  S.  Irenaeus  and  S.  Cyprian  and  S.  Augustine. 
Our  Liturgy  is  in  all  essentials,  and  largely  almost 
word  for  word,  the  very  same  as  the  earliest  extant 
Liturgies  of  the  Eastern  Church.  Our  Creeds  are 
those  which  have  been  recited  almost  exactly  as  they 
are  recited  now  for  more  than  fifteen  hundred  years. 
Our  doctrines  are  the  doctrines  handed  down  by  indis- 
putable tradition  from  the  Apostles,  proved  by  Holy 
Scripture,  defined  as  occasion  arose  by  Ecumenical 
Councils.  The  Church  into  which  we  have  been 
baptized  is  fo?  us,  in  these  United  States,  that  one 
Catholic  and  Apostolic  Church  in  which  every  one  of 
us  professes  to  believe.  Through  her  Christ  teaches 
us  and  governs  us.  And  in  an  age  of  almost  universal 
skepticism  and  endless  new  experiments  in  religion  and 
morals,  amid  the  babble  of  controversy  and  the  boastful 
pretensions  of  competing  sects,  it  is  with  an  authority 
higher  than  her  own  that  she  calls  us  away  from 
further  speculation  to  practical  godliness.  It  is  with 
a  wisdom  more  than  human  that  she  warns  us  "to 
hold  fast  that  we  have,  that  no  man  take  our  crown" ; 
and  not  to  set  out  on  a  path  of  doubt  and  discussion 
of  which  we  are  only  certain  that  it  will  disturb  our 
peace  and  cool  our  devotion  and  relax  our  energy.  If 
it  must  be  so,  alas !  let  others  wrangle  who  do  not 
pretend  to  have  any  fixed  dogma  or  divine  guidance  or 
authorized  government.  Revolutions  are  ever  easy  for 
those  who  have  nothing  to  lose.  Let  those  ti-y  to 
invent  a  religion  who  imagine  themselves  to  be  without 
one.  Let  those  amuse  themselves  by  constructing  a 
Church  polity  who  repudiate  history  and  make  light  of 


132  SPECULATION   AND  OBEDIENCE. 

the  Apostles.     "  What  is  that  to  thee  ?    Follow  thou 
Me." 

It  may  seem  humiliating,  indeed,  deliberately  to 
decline  controversy  ;  it  may  seem  even  cowardly,  as  if 
we  were  distrustful  of  the  result.  But  we  should 
remember  the  immense  range  of  universal  discussion, 
and  the  extreme  danger  of  committing  ourselves  to  a 
conflict,  not  with  some  one  individual  who  shall  have 
fairly  studied,  so  far  as  it  is  possible,  the  whole  subject 
in  dispute;  but  with  any  number  of  picked  men,  each 
of  whom  is  a  specialist,  and  has  spent  perhaps  a  life- 
time in  equipping  himself  for  the  attack  of  some  small 
corner  of  the  vast  territory  the  whole  of  which  we 
undertake  single-handed  to  defend.  Thus  we  are  to 
engage  with  a  Huxley  in  biology  ;  though  biology  has 
only  an  accidental  and  not  very  important  bearing  on 
religion  and  morals,  and  though,  in  his  own  depart- 
ment, Mr.  Huxley  has  probably  not  a  superior  in  the 
world.  Again,  the  great  question  at  issue  between 
ourselves  and  the  Church  of  Eome  is  the  supremacy  of 
the  See  of  S.  Peter.  The  immense  majority  of  good 
Churchmen  have  never  read  a  single  syllable  on  this 
subject — and  certainly  the  same  may  be  affirmed  of  the 
immense  majority  of  Komanists.  The  literature  of  the 
question  is  a  considerable  library  ;  and  an  independent 
judgment  upon  it  can  be  formed  only  by  a  minute  ex- 
amination in  the  original  languages  of  the  whole  of  the 
Christian  writings  of  at  least  the  first  four  centuries. 
And  even  if  this  issue  were  decided  in  our  favour,  so 
far  as  it  can  be  determined  by  the  explicit  testimony 
of  antiquity.  Dr.  Newman  meets  us  with  his  theory  of 
development — a  theory  which,  in  his  hands,  includes 
the  whole  of  modern  Komanism,  from  the  doctrine  of 
the  Trinity  to  the  veneration  of  relics  and  the  worship 


SPECULATION   AND  OBEDIENCE.  133 

of  images,  from  the  Canon  of  Scripture  to  the  infalli- 
bility of  the  Pope.  The  Quaker  thinks  Ave  have  no 
right  to  express  an  opinion  about  the  ecclesiastical 
eccentricities  or  peculiar  doctrines  of  his  sect  till  we 
are  familiar  with,  at  least,  Barclay's  Apology.  How 
many  of  us  have  read  it?  Which  of  us  has  given  an 
independent  study  to  Mormonism,  in  Mormon  books 
and  in  the  usages  and  opinions  of  Mormon  men  and 
women  ?  There  is  a  sect  of  "  Christians  who  object  to 
be  otherwise  designated."  Which  of  us  knows  any- 
thing accurately  about  them  ?  It  is  highly  edifying 
to  consider  what  was  the  origin  and  beginning  of  the 
supposed  supernatural  inspirations  and  revelations  of 
Emanuel  Swedenborg.  "  One  night  in  London, 
after  he  had  dined  heartily,  a  kind  of  mist  spread 
before  the  eyes  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  and  the  floor 
of  his  room  was  covered  with  hideous  reptiles,  such  as 
serpents,  toads,  and  the  like.  '  I  was  astonished,'  he 
says,  'having  all  my  wits  about  me,  and  being  per- 
fectly conscious.  The  darkness  attained  its  height 
and  then  passed  away.  I  now  saw  a  man  sitting  in 
the  corner  of  the  chamber.  As  I  had  thought  myself 
entirely  alone,  I  was  greatly  frightened  when  he  said 
to  me,  "  Eat  not  so  much."  My  sight  again  became 
dim,  and  when  I  recovered  it  I  found  myself  alone  in 
the  room.'  The  following  night  the  same  thing 
occurred.  *  I  was  this  time  not  at  all  alarmed.  The 
man  said,  "  I  am  God,  the  Lord,  the  Creatoi-  and 
Redeemer  of  the  world.  I  have  chosen  thee  to  unfold 
to  men  the  spiritual  sense  of  the  Holy  Scripture.  I 
will  Myself  dictate  to  thee  what  thou  shalt  write."  '  "* 

*  Maudsley's  Body  and    Mind   and   Psychological  Essays 
(Appleton,  N.  Y.),  1876,  pp.  185-186. 


134:  SPECULATION   AND  OBEDIENCE. 

Such  being  the  foundation  of  the  "  Church  of  the  New 
Jerusalem,"  are  we  to  be  considered  irrational  if  we 
deem  it  a  preposterous  waste  of  time  to  examine  the 
superstructure  ? 

Do  you  decide  to  build  your  religion  on  controversy, 
to  challenge  all  comers,  to  accept  only  what  you  have 
independently  proved,  and  believe  only  what  you  have 
personally  verified  ?  Be  it  so — but  how  long  do  you 
propose  to  live  ?  Are  you  sure  that  you  can  be 
released  from  every  other  occupation  ?  You  must 
first  make  good  your  position  against  the  material- 
ists and  atheists  and  pantheists,  and  against  all  the 
separate  forms  of  their  Protean  errors.  You  must 
decide  the  "  divine  legation "  of  Moses,  and  the 
Messiahship  of  Jesus.  You  must  go  through  the  details 
of  the  Arian  heresy  and  the  Donatist  schism.  You  must 
decide  upon  the  claims  of  the  Papacy  and  the  justifi- 
cation of  the  Keformers.  Of  these  last  you  must  do 
separate  battle  with  Luther  and  Calvin,  with  Laud 
and  the  Puritans,  with  Wesley  and  Pusey.  You  must 
further  investigate  the  conflicting  pretensions  of  the 
different  sorts  of  Presbyterians  and  Methodists,  Quak- 
ers and  Baptists.  And  while  these  are  the  main 
lines  of  the  road  along  which  you  propose  to  travel 
militant,  you  will  find  innumerable  bypaths  at  the  end 
of  every  one  of  which  is  lurking  a  foe.  And  when 
you  have  fought  your  good  fight  with  other  people's 
opinions,  and  arrived  at  a  truth  which  will  really 
satisfy  your  intellect,  you  will  then  have  to  begin  the 
real  business  of  life — which  is  to  fear  God  and  to  keep 
His  Commandments.  If  this  long  research  be  included 
in  theduty  of  every  intelligent  Christian,  it  is  perfectly 
obvious  that  there  lives  not  on  the  face  of  the  whole 


SPECULATION  AND  OBEDIENCE.  135 

earth  one  intelligent  Christian  who  has  even  approxi- 
mately discharged  his  duty.  A  duty  impossible  is  a 
contradiction  even  in  terms  ;  and  this  were  an  impossi- 
ble duty. 

No,  my  dear  brethren,  we  are  called  to  no  task  so 
idle  and  at  the  same  time  so  presumptuous,  so  mon- 
strously beyond  our  powers.  It  is  by  no  means  clear 
that  any  formal  proof  of  our  religion  is  generally  needed 
— it  only  becomes  necessary  when  our  souls  are  sick. 
It  is  the  dyspeptic  that  gets  his  food  analyzed  and  con- 
sults his  physician  about  the  processes  of  digestion. 
Blessed,  rather,  is  the  man  who  has  never  need  to  ask 
whether  his  food  is  nutritious,  and  who  "  does  not 
know  that  he  has  a  system"!*  But  even  if  it  should 
become  necessary  for  us  to  prove  our  own  belief,  it  is 
by  no  means  necessary  for  us  to  disTproYe  other  people's 
mishelief.  Our  religion  comes  to  us  like  a  mother's 
love,  like  a  father's  protecting  care.  It  is  ready  for  us 
at  our  birth.  It  proves  its  power  by  being  the  guide 
of  our  spiritual  energy.  It  brings  God  near  to  us,  and 
us  near  to  God.  It  expresses  and  deepens  our  piety. 
It  orders  our  lives.  It  comforts  us  amid  the  troubles 
of  life,  in  sickness,  in  bereavement,  in  the  valley  of  the 
shadow  of  death.  It  needs  no  other  proving;  and  if 
any  one  should  feel  it  his  duty — for  what  will  con- 
science not  require  ? — to  clisipro\e  for  us  our  religion, 
we  should  receive  him  with  the  feeling  with  which  we 
should  listen  to  the  accusations  of  a  candid  friend  who 
should  endeavour  to  persuade  us  of  a  father's  dishonour 
or  of  the  unchastity  of  a  mother.  Granted  that  we  take 
our  religion  on  trust — that  most  of  us  accept  it  on  the 

*Cf.  Carlyle's  "Characteristics"  (Essays,  III  329,  et  seqq. 
LiVjrary  Edition). 


13G  SPECULATION  AND  OBEDIENCE. 

unexamined  but  continuous  evidence  of  twenty  cen- 
turies— what  more  does  infidelity  or  heresy  or  scliism 
offer  to  us  ?  Not,  assuredly,  an  independent  judgment ; 
but  that  we  shall  exchange  faith  in  the  Church  for 
faith  (shall  I  say?)  in  Wesley  or  Swedenborg,  in  Mr. 
Huxley  or  Mr»  Robert  Ingersoll. 

But,  assuredly,  to  avoid  speculation  is  not  the  whole 
duty  of  man.  Our  Lord's  question  to  S.  Peter — "  What 
is  that  to  thee  ?" — should  be  forever  sounding  in  our 
ears.  But  far  more  important  still  is  His  command, 
"  Follow  thou  Me."  This  must  be  the  secret  of  our 
own  life;  it  is  the  secret  of  the  life  of  the  Church. 
May  God  give  us  grace  to  set  Him  before  men  neither 
by  our  orthodoxy  alone,  nor  by  the  simplicity  of  our 
acceptance  of  the  truth,  but  by  utter  obedience  and  by 
"  endeavouring  ourselves  to  follow  the  blessed  steps  of 
Christ's  most  holy  life"!  "For  the  Kingdom  of  God 
is  not  in  word,  but  in  power  ";...."  not  meat  and 
drink,  but  righteousness  and  peace  and  joy  in  the 
Holy  Ghost." 


MANLY  STRENGTH.* 

Noiv  the  days  of  David  dreiv  nigh  that  he  should  die  ;  and 
he  charged  Solomon  his  son,  saying,  I  go  the  ivay  of  all  the 
earth:  he  thou  strong  therefore,  and  shoic  thyself  a  man. — 
I.  Kings  ii,  1-2. 

Nothing  is  more  common  than  for  men  to  perceive 
and  rebuke  in  others  the  vices  and  neglects  which  they 
fail  to  notice  in  themselves.  Time  glides  so  noiselessly 
away  from  them,  and  the  changes  produced  by  a  single 
hour  or  day  are  so  slight,  that  it  is  only  at  some  critical 
period  of  their  lives,  when  they  are  compelled  to  com- 
pare the  present  with  a  somewhat  distant  past  of  their 
history  and  experience,  that  they  discover  how  much 
has  come  to  them  and  how  much  has  gone  forever. 
When  they  revisit  the  scenes  of  their  childhood ;  when 
they  read  over  again  some  book,  once  a  favourite,  now 
almost  forgotten ;  when  they  meet  an  old  friend  who 
has  achieved  some  great  commercial  success,  or  reached 
a  proud  eminence  in  literature  or  scholarship ;  Avhen 
they  have  to  decide  where  their  children  shall  be 
educated,  or  what  shall  be  the  trade  or  profession  by 
which  they  shall  seek  to  make  their  way  in  the  world 
— at  such  times  they  are  startled  to  find  what  vast 
changes  have  silently  been  wrought  in  them  by  the 
greatest  of  all  innovators.  Time.  They  get  that  rare 
and  exceptional  view  of  themselves  which  is  their  com- 
mon view  of  others — they  see  themselves  after  an 
absence. 

*This  sermon  was  addressed  especially  to  young  men  (London, 
1863). 


138  MANLY  STRENGTH. 

It  would  be  a  strange  life  indeed  that  could  be 
reviewed  without  thankfulness.  They  are  very  few, 
and  must  have  been  very  unfortunate,  who  would  ask 
for  the  doubtful  privilege  of  living  life  over  again. 
Yet,  though  we  are  increasingly  diffident  of  ourselves, 
we  think  we  can  see  the  folly  of  others,  and  warn  and 
help  them.  Moreover,  we  cannot  avoid  the  regrets 
which,  alas!  are  now  unavailing.  We  see  how  a  little 
more  diligence  and  care  would  have  made  us  as  rich  as 
our  wealthiest  friends ;  how  more  patient  and  persever- 
ing study  would  have  raised  us  also  to  literary  eminence. 
And  we  mourn  and  fret  that  now  we  must  die  obscure, 
no  grand  victory  won,  either  material  or  spiritual.  Is 
there  no  path  left  to  an  immortality  of  fame  ? — no 
road  still  open  to  commercial  prosperity,  to  intellectual 
culture,  to  moral  and  spiritual  greatness  ?  Must  we, 
indeed,  die  and  be  forgotten  because  we  have  done 
nothing  to  deserve  remembrance  ? 

It  is  not  religion  only — it  is  our  very  human  nature 
that  longs  for  immortality.  Our  power  of  thought, 
our  affections,  shrink  back  from  nothingness  with  the 
utmost  horror.  Every  unsolved  problem,  every  un- 
accomplished purpose,  every  dear  and  loving  friend, 
demands  that  we  should  still  live  on ;  our  pleasures 
we  would  live  to  enjoy,  our  griefs  and  misfortunes  we 
would  live  to  master;  we  would  live  to  serve  our  friends, 
we  would  live  to  wring  even  from  our  enemies  the 
acknowledgment  that  we  deserved  better  from  them 
than  hatred  or  scorn. 

Whatever  crazy  Sorrow  saith, 

No  life  that  breathes  with  human  breath 

lias  ever  truly  longed  for  death. 


MANLY  8TKENQTH.  139 

'Tis  life,  whereof  our  nerves  are  scant — 
Oh,  life,  not  death — for  which  we  pant ; 
More  life,  and  fuller,  that  we  want.* 

Often  this  passionate  longing  for  personal  immor- 
tality spends  itself  in  the  endeavour  to  make  our 
children  all  that  we  so  ardently  and  so  vainly  wish 
that  we  ourselves  could  have  been;  and  as  the  task 
becomes  harder,  and,  above  all,  when  it  becomes 
impossible,  we  yearn  to  accomplish  it  with  a  very  agony 
of  desire.  It  is  this  which  gives  to  the  counsels  of  the 
dying  their  wondrous  depth  and  power.  It  is  this 
which  strove  for  utterance  when  "  the  days  of  David 
drew  nigh  that  he  should  die ;  and  he  charged  Solomon 
his  son,  saying,  I  go  the  way  of  all  the  earth :  be  thou 
strong  therefore,  and  show  thyself  a  man."  We  feel 
that  we  have  been  tueah ;  that  our  manhood  has  been 
dwarfed  or  distorted.  We  would  have  our  children  far 
nobler  than  ourselves,  and  yet  our  children,  carrying 
on  our  work,  and  in  a  manner  our  very  selves,  into 
future  generations. 

Yet,  perhaps,  the  advice  of  David  to  his  son,  espe- 
cially when  applied  for  our  own  guidance  in  these 
Christian  ages,  may  seem  poor  and  inadequate.  Is  this 
all,  we  may  be  inclined  to  ask,  that  a  dying  father  has 
to  say — "  Be  strong  and  manly  "?  It  must,  indeed,  be 
acknowledged  that  there  is  nothing  here  specifically 
Christian;  nothing  that  any  one  creed  or  sect  can 
monopolize,  either  for  evil  or  good.  But  is  not  this  an 
advantage  ?  Is  it  not  well  that  there  are  holy  precepts 
that  we  may  take  without  controversy  even  to  "  Jews, 
Turks,  infidels,  and  heretics  "?  May  not  such  precepts 
suggest  a  real  brotherhood  and  become  the  occasion  of 

*  Tennyson  :  Tht  Two  Voices. 


1-tO  MANLY   STKENGTH. 

ail  actual  fellowship  ?  And,  in  truth,  what  can  the 
highest  practical  teaching  of  all  religion  be  but  this — 
"Show  thyself  a  man^'i  On  either  side  of  such 
counsel  there  are  unfathomable  depths  of  sin  and 
folly.  "  Ye  shall  be  as  gods,  knowing  good  and  evil." 
"  Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die."  At  the 
same  time,  we  must  remember  what  true  human 
nature  is.  To  live  according  to  nature  is  virtue;  yet, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  may  be  urged  that  the  state  of 
nature  is  a  state  of  war,  and  that  he  alone  can  be 
virtuous  who  lives  above  nature.  The  ambiguity 
vanishes  when  we  adopt  the  word  "  man  "  instead  of 
"  human  nature,"  Be  a  man ;  partaking,  indeed,  of 
flesh  and  blood,  yet  none  the  less  a  spirit  to  whom 
"  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty  giveth  under- 
standing." We  cannot  rise  higher  than  our  manhood ; 
we  need  not  and  we  ought  not  to  sink  below  it.  This 
would  scarcely  be  denied  even  by  those  who  sometimes 
seem  to  speak  of  human  nature  as  if  it  were  an  accursed 
thing  to  be  utterly  abolished.  They  speak  of  a  "  new 
birth,"  a  "new  creature,"  a  "new  man,"  as  if  these 
expressions  implied  either  that  we  are  not  human  now, 
or  that  if  we  would  please  God  we  must  cease  to  be  so. 
In  either  case  David's  advice  to  Solomon  must  be  com- 
pletely irrelevant,  and  quite  incapable  of  being  accom- 
modated to  our  own  use.  But  in  truth  there  is  no 
theory  of  total  depravity,  and  there  is  no  theory  of 
regeneration,  which  is  not  compelled  to  recognize  the 
fact  of  human  responsibility,  and  the  possibility  of 
virtue  and  vice.  We  may,  therefore,  boldly  adopt  the 
words  of  the  text ;  we  may  say  to  ourselves  arjd  to  one 
another,  "  You  are  not  so  bad  as  to  have  utterly  lost 
intellect  and  conscience,  and  the  power  of  becoming 


MANLY  STKENGTH.  141 

better;  you  may  be  a  wicked  man  and  a  foolish  man, 
but  yon  are  a  man  still.  Cast  away  then  yonr  sin  and 
folly,  and  live  by  that  *  inspiration  of  the  Almighty 
which  gives  you  understanding.'  Remember,  too,  that 
that  divine  help  is  your  birthright  as  a  man  ;  the  very 
glory  that  distinguishes  you  from  the  beasts  that 
perish." 

And  surely,  without  presuming  upon  any  profound 
knowledge  of  the  world,  or  of  the  age  we  live  in,  it  is 
plain  to  the  most  superficial  observer  that  we  are  in 
great  need  of  the  counsel,  "  Be  thou  strong."  The 
age  itself,  perhaps,  is  strong ;  armies,  governments,  the 
masses,  the  numerical  majorities — these,  perhaps,  are 
strong,  but  the  individual  is  weak.  It  has  been  well 
said  that  civilization,  in  spite  of  all  that  is  good  and 
beautiful  in  it,  tends  to  destroy  individuality,  and  all 
the  variety  and  beauty  which  the  freest  possible 
development  of  individuality  can  alone  secure.  If  it 
be  so,  civilization  tends  also  to  destroy  itself.  It  must 
end,  as  hitherto  it  always  has  ended,  in  corruption  and 
ruin.  The  minority  has  been,  in  every  case,  the  salt 
of  the  earth.  All  progress,  and  every  kind  of  refor- 
mation, have  come  from  the  few,  not  from  the  mass. 
Again  and  again  has  an  Athanasius  been  against  the 
world.  If  even  Christianity  itself  can  save  society  from 
decay,  it  will  be  because  it  takes  every  separate  man, 
isolates  him  from  his  fellow-creatures,  sets  him  alone 
before  the  judgment-seat  of  Almighty  God,  and  bids 
him  answer  for  his  own  thoughts,  words  and  deeds. 
It  declares,  indeed,  that  we  are  members  one  of  another, 
that  humanity  is  one  body;  it  preaches  a  brotherhood 
more  comprehensive  than  any  fraternity  that  the  world 
has  ever  seen.     But,  at  the  same  time,  it  declares  that 


142  MANLY  STHENGTH. 

we  are  members  in  particular,  and  assures  us  that  no 
shouts  of  the  multitude,  how  loud  soever,  can  make 
our  softest  whisper  inaudible;  and  that  we  shall  be 
judged  not  according  to  the  public  opinion  or  the 
fashions  of  our  day,  but  according  to  our  own  works. 
Even  in  the  interests  then  of  that  civilization  which 
seems  so  incompatible  with  individual  energy  and  force 
of  character,  we  ought  to  lay  to  heart  the  counsel,  "Be 
thou  strong." 

But  does  civilization  tend  to  make  us  feeble?  It 
may,  perhaps,  be  necessary  to  offer  some  few  illustra- 
tions of  what  I  have  assumed  to  be  a  fact.  It  is  plain, 
at  any  rate,  that  in  everything  requiring  physical 
strength  the  individual  is  of  less  and  less  value.  The 
strength  of  Homeric  heroes  would  be  useless  on  a 
modern  battlefield,  and  nations  no  longer  entrust  the 
settlement  of  their  quarrels  to  the  fortunes  of  a  duel. 
Goliath  of  Gath  would  only  be  a  better  mark  for  the 
bullet  of  a  rifleman.  It  is  not  the  strength  of  indi- 
viduals that  is  now  needed,  but  the  organization  and 
discipline  of  vast  masses — nay,  the  great  battles  of  our 
own  age  are  fought  out  as  much  by  chemists  and 
mathematicians  as  by  the  soldiers  who  slay  and  are 
slain.  So  also  in  the  works  of  peace,  in  the  productive 
labour  of  what  Ave  call  the  working-classes,  individual 
strength  counts  almost  for  nothing.  Wind  and  water 
and  steam  do  now  the  work  that  heretofore  could  be 
performed  only  by  human  force  and  toil.  Division  of 
labour,  skill,  organization,  combination — these  are  now 
needed,  and  not  individual  strength.  At  the  same 
time,  it  would  be  most  unfortunate  that  the  physical 
perfection  of  the  human  race  should  degenerate.  It  is 
impossible  to  separate  bodily  vigour  from  vigour  of 


MANLY  STEENGTir.  143 

spirit,  however  carefully  and  accurately  we  may  dis- 
tinguish the  two.  And  there  is  a  peculiarly  obvious 
connection  between  bodily  strength  and  courage,  even 
tliat  kind  which  we  call  moral  courage.  When  war 
becomes  a  matter  of  science  and  money,  politics  them- 
selves become  etfeminate.  The  horror  of  bloodshed 
and  the  fear  of  pain  overpower  the  horror  of  tyranny 
and  the  fear  of  national  disgrace.  Commerce  would 
sacrifice  even  the  honour  of  the  fatherland  for  the  sake 
of  a  new  market ;  "  selling  its  birthright,"  as  it  were, 
"  for  a  mess  of  pottage."  And,  in  truth,  that  moral 
cowardice  which  simply  yields  to  the  majority,  which 
dares  have  or  utter  no  opinion  of  its  own,  which  would 
rather  perish  with  the  many  than  be  saved  among  the 
noble  army  of  martyrs,  may  be  more  closely  connected 
than  we  are  in  the  habit  of  remembering  with  physical 
weakness.  "  Be  thou  strong,"  therefore ;  take  good 
heed  that  your  body  is  so  braced  and  exercised  that 
you  may  not  be  the  sport  of  sick  fancies  and  nervous 
excitements.  Seek  to  acquire  and  to  preserve  such 
vigour  of  nerve  and  muscle  that  every  little  rumour  of 
danger  shall  not  have  power  to  scare  you  into  silence 
and  obscurity.  Do  not  lose  altogether  the  faculty  of 
a  noble  and  righteous  anger ;  and  remember  that  there 
is  a  spirited  element  in  human  nature  which  is  to  be 
the  ally  of  reason  in  subduing  the  flesh  to  its  will. 
Inasmuch  as  the  animal  in  a  man  is  to  be  the  instru- 
ment or  slave  of  the  spiritual,  take  care  that  the 
instrument  be  perfect,  and  the  slave  in  such  health  and 
vigour  that  he  may  do  the  full  measure  of  his  work. 

The  same  individual  weakness  may  be  observed  in 
the  intellectual  culture,  the  general  education  of  our 
day.     There  was  a  time  when  education  was  monopo- 


144  MANLY  STRENGTH. 

lized  by  a  very  few.  For  the  "  lower  classes  "  to  wish 
to  be  taught  was  deemed  an  insufferable  impertinence. 
What  right  had  they  to  push  themselves  out  of  their 
J) roper  station,  and  thrust  themselves  into  the  place  of 
their  betters  ?  Especially  what  would  become  of  the 
privileged  few  if  the  unprivileged  many  were  allowed 
to  compete  with  them  ?  Still  education  in  those  old 
times  was,  of  its  kind,  thorough.  It  was  not  first 
useful,  and  then,  if  a  happy  chance  would  have  it  so, 
human.  It  was  first  of  all  human,  and  therefore  in 
every  case  useful.  It  was  the  education  of  the  man, 
and  not  of  the  tradesman,  the  physician,  the  lawyer, 
or  the  divine.  It  did  not  seek  to  train  a  youth  for 
some  particular  station  in  life,  into  which  he  might 
after  all  never  enter,  and  out  of  which  a  thousand 
accidents  might  remove  him ;  its  aim  was  to  make  a 
man  of  him,  that  so  he  might  be  fit  for  any  station 
whatever.  It  had  to  do  with  genuine  studies,  not  mere 
accomplishments,  whether  of  the  useful  or  of  the  orna- 
mental kind.  No  doubt  it  had  its  defects.  It  chose 
too  often  to  sto})  at  principles,  not  caring  to  deduce 
from  them  the  precepts  which  would  have  connected 
them  with  ordinary  life.  It  knew  little,  and  therefore 
could  impart  little,  of  those  physical  sciences  which 
fill  so  large  a  space  in  our  most  modern  thought  and 
teaching.  Nay,  there  was  a  point  of  view  from  which 
it  denied  them  to  be  sciences  at  all ;  for  they  were  con- 
cerned with  ever-changing  phenomena,  not  with  sub- 
stance; with  that  which  5ee??w,  not  with  that  which  is. 
Yet  the  learned  were  not  unwilling  to  acknowledge 
that  they  had  freely  received  in  order  that  they  might 
freely  give ;  and  the  unlearned  began  to  demand  that 
they  might  be  made  acquainted  with  the  principles 


MANLY  STRENGTH.  145 

and  not  only  the  precepts  by  which  life  may  be  wisely 
guided.  So  in  the  end  it  has  come  to  pass  that  there 
is  education  for  everybody  who  chooses  to  take  it. 
Unhappily,  it  is  education  of  the  useful  kind  rather 
than  of  the  human.  It  trains  men  for  some  particular 
station  in  life,  not  for  life  itself.  It  can  see  no  good 
in  much  which  seemed  in  former  days  to  be  the  only 
good.  It  used  to  be  believed — and,  for  my  part,  I 
believe  it  still — that  the  science  of  language,  for 
instance,  can  be  learnt  most  accurately  in  the  old 
classic  languages ;  that  there  we  can  most  surely  find 
the  true  philosophy  of  language,  and  discover  the 
mystical  relation  between  the  Reason  and  the  Word. 
But  Boston  and  New  York,  Manchester  and  Birming- 
ham, carry  on  no  correspondence  in  ancient  Greek  and 
Latin;  and  a  man  may  learn  quite  easily  to  talk  pretty 
nothings  in  Italian  or  French.  The  classics  educate 
the  man;  modern  languages,  when  they  are  studied 
for  their  utility  rather  than  their  literature,  the 
merchant  or  the  traveller.  Even  in  the  department  of 
the  physical  sciences,  which  are  unquestionably  "use- 
ful," there  is  a  tendency  to  popularize  rather  than 
thoroughly  teach  them.  And  though  even  a  slight 
knowledge  of  those  innumerable  facts  which  observa- 
tion and  experiment  have  accumulated  and  tested — 
and  much  more  a  knowledge  of  the  best  method  of 
arranging  and  classifying  them — is  greatly  to  be  pre- 
ferred to  mere  ignorance,  yet  the  very  multitude  of 
facts  and  of  the  sciences  which  are  based  upon  them 
may  easily  weaken,  almost  to  uselessness,  our  mental 
forces  by  scattering  them  over  too  wide  a  region.  The 
thorough  study  and  accurate  knowledge  even  of  a 
single  science  will  require  and  increase  our  strength ; 


]46  MANLY  STRENGTH. 

■will  need  and  will  confirm  those  habits  of  accuracy 
which  can  never  fail  to  be  useful,  because,  in  fact,  they 
belong  to  the  truly  human  discipline.  But  to  learn 
results  while  we  know  nothing  of  the  process  by  which 
they  have  been  obtained,  only  encumbers  the  memory ; 
puffs  us  up  with  the  mere  conceit  of  knowledge, 
while  we  are  without  the  reality;  conceals  from  us  the 
difference  between  the  quantity  and  the  quality  of  the 
facts  which  are  employed  as  evidence  and  proof  of 
scientific  propositions ;  and,  in  a  word,  leads  us  back 
again  to  that  careless  and  fruitless  induction  from 
which  it  was  the  great  aim  of  the  philosopher  whom 
physical  science  most  delights  to  honour  to  set  us  free. 
When  there  is  so  much  to  be  learned;  when  almost 
every  year  a  new  science  or  application  of  science 
delights  or  alarms  us ;  when  science  is  becoming  more 
and  more  plainly  connected  with  our  daily  life  and 
even  our  religious  belief;  when  it  seeks  to  determine 
now  the  antiquity  and  now  the  origin  of  the  human 
race ;  when  it  bids  us  approach  through  anatomy  and 
physiology  the  theories  and  beliefs  which  we  have 
hitherto  arrived  at  only  through  scripture  or  history ; 
it  becomes  us  to  acquire,  not  mere  adroitness  and  skill 
in  concealing  our  ignorance  or  bringing  into  prominence 
what  little  show  of  knowledge  we  may  have,  but 
genuine  intellectual  strength,  the  power  fairly  to 
grapple  with  the  diflBculties  of  at  least  some  one 
department  of  truth,  that  so  we  may  be  safe  both  from 
the  pride  and  the  panics  of  that  folly  which  is  always 
weak,  that  weakness  which  is  ahvays  foolish.  Surely 
in  the  midst  of  sophistry  and  pretension  there  is  need 
of  this  counsel,  *'  Be  thou  strong^  Gain  an  inde- 
pendent knowledge  of  something,  however  slight — let 


MANLY  STRENGTH.  147 

there  be  something  that  you  yourself  have  really 
verified,  something  that  you  have  not  taken  wholly  on 
trust;  in  understanding  be  a  man.  Guard  yourself 
against  the  danger  of  being  hurried  away  by  every  new 
theory,  every  plausible  hypothesis.  Learn  at  least  how 
to  choose  your  guides ;  and  remember  that  you  will 
learn  that  only  by  being  yourself  a  traveller  and  know- 
ing some  road  for  yourself.  The  older  culture,  feeble 
with  age,  eclipsed  by  the  splendour  of  its  far  more 
brilliant  rivals,  silenced  by  the  clamour  of  noisy  pre- 
tenders, derided  as  useless  by  a  generation  that  cares 
more  for  fruit  than  for  the  tree  on  which  it  grows, 
seems  to  be  calling  us,  as  David  called  Solomon,  to 
receive  the  counsels  of  a  mature  but  departing  wisdom 
— "  I  am  going  the  way  of  all  the  earth :  be  thou 
strong  therefore,  and  show  thyself  a  man." 

Even  our  very  amusements  seem  more  and  more  to 
be  growing  feeble.  It  is  well  indeed  that  there  should 
be  amusements,  and  that  they  should  be  such  in  reality 
and  not  in  name.  It  is  well  that  they  should  afford 
relief  from  severe  study,  and  be  diversions  in  the 
sense  of  actually  diverting  the  mind  from  what,  Avith- 
out  such  relief,  would  too  greatly  strain  and  fatigue  it. 
But  the  reason  and  the  intellect  of  a  man  should  scorn 
to  find  such  diversion  only  in  the  gratification  of  the 
senses;  and  the  changes  in  the  use  of  words  which 
even  the  last  few  years  have  witnessed,  write  only  too 
truly  the  history  of  social  degeneracy.  The  new 
meaning  of  the  word  sensation,  for  instance,  may 
afford  to  some  future  Dean  of  Westminster  some  bitter 
paragraphs  on  the  "  morality  in  words."  He  will  find 
in  that  new  meaning  the  evidence  that  civilization  in 
England  and  in  most  "  progressive  "  nations,  in  the 


148  MANLY  STRENGTH. 

latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  had  arrived  at 
that  stage  when  men  can  scarcely  live  without  feverish 
and  hysterical  excitement ;  and  when  cowardice,  and 
effeminacy,  and  affectation,  change  into  cruelty  and 
the  keen  enjoyment  of  danger  to  limb  and  life.  The 
diversions  and  amusements  of  literature  are  now 
"  sensation  "  stories.  A  music-hall  can  now  scarcely 
ensure  a  crowded  audience  excepting  by  the  grossest 
exaggerations  of  a  folly  that  has  no  wit;  or  by  some 
infatuated  man  or  woman  encountering  the  risk,  by  no 
means  remote,  of  life-long  torture  or  a  horrible  and 
sudden  death.  These  amusements  are  surely  beneath 
the  dignity  of  human  nature,  and  are  scarcely  to  be 
preferred  to  Spanish  bull-fights,  or  the  contests  of  the 
old  Roman  gladiators.  And  it  must  be  remembered 
that  it  is  not  the  lower  orders  who  are  rising  to  these 
enjoyments,  but  the  soberer  and  better-instructed  who 
are  sinking  to  them.  From  the  pot-house  to  cheap 
theatres  may  be  a  social  and  intellectual  elevation.  In 
those  of  them,*  indeed,  which  are  largest  and  best  con- 
ducted, it  is  impossible  to  deny  that,  with  much 
danger  and  not  a  little  evil,  there  are  not  wanting 
many  elements  of  good.  It  is  impossible  to  watch  the 
eager,  upturned  faces  of  the  vast  assemblies  which 
crowd  these  enormous  edifices — four,  five,  even  six 
thousand  of  them — without  perceiving  that  for  a  few 
short  hours  at  least  they  are  contented  and  happy. 
They  do  not  sit  with  the  listless  indifference  of  the 
used-up  man  of  fashion ;  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  is  it 
only  the  performance  and  the  acting  in  which  they  are 
interested.     They  hiss  from  the  stage,  not  the   bad 

*This  refers  especially  to  some  of  the   very  large  cheap 
theatres  of  London. 


MANLY  STRENGTH.  149 

actress,  but  the  bad  woman,  the  confidante  who 
betrays  her  trust,  the  cheat  and  the  deceiver.  They 
applaud,  not  so  much  the  man  who  can  well  represent 
the  noblest  emotions,  and  exhibit  almost  as  in  actual 
life  heroic  courage,  but  the  man  who  happens  to  have 
these  virtues  to  represent,  however  indifferently  he  may 
play  his  part.  When  the  weak  and  delicate  maiden  is 
rescued  from  the  grasp  of  some  ferocious  and  cowardly 
assailant,  her  deliverance  is  greeted  with  a  shout  of 
enthusiasm  which  comes  assuredly  from  no  refinement 
of  the  critical  faculty,  but  from  real  generosity  of 
heart.  Nor  is  the  morality  of  the  cheap  theatres 
always  inferior  to  the  morality  of  some  of  the  most 
popular  operas.  But  from  those  sensation  entertain- 
ments in  which  the  middle  classes  seek  some  relief 
from  the  dull  routine  of  their  ordinary  life,  and  too 
often  also  from  the  utter  emptiness  of  their  understand- 
ings, it  seems  impossible  to  bring  away  anything 
approaching  to  genuine  cheerfulness,  or  the  recollec- 
tion even  of  a  laughter  that  Avas  not  too  insincere  to  be 
better  than  "the  crackling  of  thorns  under  a  pot." 
Young  men  especially  seem  growing  too  feeble  even 
heartily  to  play ;  and  they  need  to  be  reminded  that  it 
is  only  the  strong  man  who  can  retain  through  life,  in 
spite  of  all  its  burdens  and  disappointments,  the 
joyous  simplicity  and  playful  gladness  of  a  little  child. 
But  the  feebleness  of  the  age  manifests  itself  most 
completely  and  most  ominously  in  the  tame  submission 
of  the  individual  to  the  tyranny  of  majorities.  The 
formation  of  public  opinion  is  one  of  those  mysteries 
that  it  would  seem  impossible  to  solve.  Action  and 
reaction  are  here  so  rapid  and  so  intricate,  that  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  determine  what  is  cause  and  what 


150  MANLY  STRENGTH. 

is  effect.  Do  the  speeches,  for  instance,  that  are  made 
at  a  public  meeting  create,  or  even  to  a  great  degree 
modify,  the  opinion  of  an  audience  ?  Do  they  not,  on 
the  other  hand,  simply  echo  the  opinion  that  has  been 
already  formed,  and  gain  their  enthusiasm  from  a 
sympathy  already  existing  and  strong  ?  A  temper- 
ance meeting  is  made  up  of  people  the  majority  of 
whom  are  already  pledged  to  total  abstinence,  and  who 
are  present  not  because  they  need  convincing,  but 
because  they  are  convinced  already.  The  orators  of 
our  great  religious  societies  make  their  appeals  not  to 
enemies,  but  to  friends.  So  also  in  political  and  even 
parochial  affairs  it  seems  impossible  to  discover  how  a 
public  opinion  is  produced,  and  whether  the  platform 
and  the  press  are  its  creatures  or  its  creators.  The 
modern  press  itself,  that  great  bulwark  of  liberty,  that 
new  power  which  boasts  to  be  stronger  even  than  par- 
liaments or  courts  of  justice — even  this  must  pay  the 
penalty  of  familiarity,  and  can  be  no  hero  to  its  valets. 
Tlie  awful  "  we  "  is  very  often  discovered  to  be  a  very 
meek  and  commonplace  gentleman,  quietly  "  doing," 
mainly  with  the  aid  of  a  pair  of  scissors,  the  noblest 
institutions  and  the  silliest  hobbies  of  the  age.  Every 
newspaper  must  flatter  the  existing  public  opinion,  and 
not  create  a  better ;  or,  at  the  highest,  can  only  by  slow 
degrees,  and  with  the  most  anxious  and  sensitive  pru- 
dence, modify  the  theories  and  calm  the  passions  of 
men.  Yet,  though  we  know  not  whence  it  comes, 
though  we  often  do  know  it  to  be  extremely  ignorant 
and  dangerous,  there  is  for  every  one  of  us  a  public 
opinion,  a  belief,  or,  at  any  rate,  a  make-believe  of  the 
majority,  which  it  would  be  fatal  to  all  our  hopes  of 
worldly  success  to  disregard.     At  the  same  time,  to 


MANLY  STRENGTH.  151 

regard  it,  to  sacrifice  anything  to  it  better  than  a  mere 
whim  or  caprice,  is  almost  as  dishonest  as  it  is 
cowardly.  Men,  we  are  told,  or,  at  any  rate,  clergy- 
men, may  believe  what  they  like,  but  they  must  not 
speak  what  tliey  like.  The  articles  and  formularies  to 
which  they  have  subscribed  declare  not  necessarily 
what  is  true,  but  what,  at  any  rate,  they  are  to  affect 
to  believe  true,  and  by  no  means  to  contradict.  The 
clergy,  we  are  now  taught,  are  not  "  a  body  of  earnest 
men  commissioned  to  improve  the  faith  and  practice  of 
mankind,  but  only  a  hierarchy  of  functionaries."  "  If 
we  are  to  have  an  establishment,"  says  the  leading 
journal  of  London,*  "  we  must  establish  something ; 
somewhere  the  limit  must  be  drawn  of  what  opinions 
are  or  are  not  to  receive  tlie  support  of  the  State. 
Mere  opinion  is  and,  we  trust,  will  always  remain  free 
in  this  country;  but  clergymen  must  teach  nothing 
contrary  to  the  engagements  into  which  they  have 
entered.  A  clergyman  may  doubt  of  things  which  the 
framers  of  the  Articles  assumed  to  be  too  self-evident 
to  require  to  be  stated.  He  may  hold  doctrines  suscep- 
tible of  inferences  subversive  of  recognized  opinions. 
He  may  get  entangled  in  the  meshes  of  modern 
criticism,  and  doubt  the  genuineness  of  whole  passages 
of  what  are  usually  accepted  as  sacred  writings.  He 
may  contend  that  the  books  of  the  Old  or  New  Testa- 
ment are  written  by  other  persons  than  those  whose 
names  they  bear,  etc.  But  he  must  not  teach  or  pub- 
lish anything  at  variance  with  the  formularies  which 
he  is  bound  to  believe."  What  hope  can  there  be  of  a 
bold,  strong,  honest  public  opinion  in  religious 
matters,  when  the  very  guides  and  leaders  of  the 

*  The  Times. 


152  MANLY  STRENGTH. 

people  are  placed  in  a  position  than  which  it  would 
be  impossible  for  the  cruelty  and  ingenuity  of  their 
worst  enemies  to  devise  one  more  contemptible  ? 
Biblical  criticism,  carrying  not  a  few  of  the  clergy 
along  with  it,  has  come  at  last  into  collision  with 
public  opinion.  Public  opinion  demands  that  the 
hierarchy  shall  not  yield  even  an  inch  of  sacred  terri- 
tory, a  single  letter  or  dot  of  Holy  Scripture,  to  the 
rationalist  invader.  This  mighty  and  irresponsible 
tyrant,  this  stern,  unreasoning  will  of  the  majority, 
must  needs  be  propitiated ;  and  not  a  single  "  safe- 
guard of  our  holy  religion,"  not  a  single  oath  or  sub- 
scription, must  be  relaxed  or  removed  until,  at  any  rate, 
the  many-headed  monster  has  been  lulled  to  sleep 
again.  Then,  when  all  educated  laymen  have  wholly 
ceased  to  care  what  the  clergy  may  utter  on  any 
religious  subject  whatever,  they  may  perhaps  receive 
from  the  universal  scorn  of  mankind  "the  liberty  to 
know,  to  utter,  and  to  argue  freely,"  Surely,  in 
presence  of  the  possibility  of  a  fate  so  ignominious,  it 
is  well  to  listen  to  the  counsel  which  David  gave  to 
Solomon,  "  Be  thou  strong,  and  show  thyself  a  man." 
But  the  fetters  by  which  the  laws  may  bind  the 
clergy  of  an  established  Church  are  not  more  real, 
they  are  only  more  conspicuous,  than  those  fetters  by 
which  almost  every  section  of  the  religious  world  is 
seeking  to  bind  the  free  spirit.  "  Think  as  the 
majority  thinks,"  religious  bigotry  says,  "  or  go  your 
way  lonely  and  suspected  ;  remember  that  people  care 
comparatively  little  about  the  truth  ;  they  have  made 
up  their  minds  long  ago  what  they  mean  to  take  for 
truth  ;  it  is  that,  and  nothing  else  whatever,  that  they 
wish  to  have  taught."    Around  that  august  sham  have 


MANLY  STRENGTH.  153 

gathered  all  manner  of  political  establishments,  vested 
interests,  pecuniary  profits,  and  windy  reputations. 
In  comparison  with  these,  nay,  even  in  comparison 
with  the  salary  of  a  common  beadle,  what  are  the 
theories  of  solitary  students,  or  the  visions  of  holy 
seers,  or  the  utterances  of  inspired  prophets  ?  Every 
new  truth,  every  new  form  of  an  old  truth,  every  kind 
of  reformation,  introduces  into  that  which  needed  to 
be  reformed  some  sort  of  confusion.  Why  not  let  well 
alone  ?  When  things  are  at  rest,  be  careful  not  to 
move  them !  You  are  sure  to  make  some  enemies — 
you  are  very  likely  not  to  make  a  single  friend;  and, 
moreover,  if  you  will  insist  on  annoying  people  with 
your  novelties  who  are  quite  content  with  things  as 
they  are,  you  must  do  it  at  your  peril. 

Who  is  not  aware  that  in  the  face  of  the  tyranny  of 
the  many,  the  individual  is  all  but  helpless  and  ex- 
ceedingly weak?  And  this  weakness  manifests  itself 
by  no  means  always  in  dishonesty,  but  far  oftener  in  a 
withdrawing  of  the  attention  and  thought  from  those 
subjects  where  difficulties  abound.  It  is  only  too  easy 
to  forget  theology  or  ethics  in  business  or  pleasure ; 
yet  business  and  pleasure  can  never  exhaust  the 
powers  of  a  human  spirit  or  satisfy  its  longings.  In 
spite  of  all  our  efforts  to  keep  them  away,  the  thoughts 
of  God  and  duty  will  sometimes  intrude;  and  even  the 
things  that  are  seen  and  temporal  will  sometimes  sug- 
gest those  better  things  that  are  not  seen  and  eternal. 
At  such  times  Aveakness  gi'ows  ashamed  of  itself  and 
wretched ;  and  even  cowardice  begins  to  perceive  that 
if  it  had  not  been  dim-sighted,  it  would  long  ago  have 
known  that  there  is  no  terrible  misery  more  utterly  to 
be  feared  than  that  which  tortures  the  man  who  has 
dared  to  be  a  coward. 


154  MANLY  STRENGTH. 

There  is,  at  any  rate,  then,  good  cause  why  we 
should  lay  to  heart  this  counsel  that  David  gave  his 
son,  "  Be  thou  strong,  and  show  thyself  a  man." 
Viewed  in  the  light  that  has  been  shining  upon  it 
more  and  more  brightly  through  many  centuries,  how 
comprehensive  has  the  meaning  of  the  words  "  Show 
thyself  a  man  "  become !  For  He  has  been  born  into 
the  world  who  came  forth  wearing  a  crown  of  thorns, 
and  of  whom  Pilate  said,  "  Behold  the  man !"  The 
old  Jewish  economy  has  passed  away,  and  we  know 
n.ow  that  it  is  better  to  be  a  child  of  God  than  a  child  of 
Abraham,  better  to  be  a  man  than  a  Jew.  Feudal  dis- 
tinctions have  for  the  most  part  gone  the  way  of  all  the 
earth  ;  aristocracy  itself  begins  to  acknowledge  that  it 
must  deserve  its  high  position,  and  he  who  has  worth 
sees  stretching  fair  before  him  the  road  to  honour. 
Nay,  even  ecclesiastical  exclusiveness  has  had  to  yield 
to  the  ever-growing  reverence  for  humanity  which  is 
inseparable  from  Christ's  religion,  and  the  priest 
retains  his  authority  only  on  condition  that  he  shall 
have  conijMssion  on  those  thai  are  ignorant  and  out  of 
the  2uay.  Theology,  politics,  trade,  science — these,  or 
all  of  them  put  together,  cannot  exhaust  the  faculties 
or  the  resources  of  human  nature ;  and  to  be  a  perfect 
man  is  nobler  and  greater  tlian  to  be  any  mere  kind  of 
7nan  whatever. 

Yet  though  we  may  have  well  learned  this  lesson, 
we  very  frequently  forget  it,  and  there  still  are  wars 
and  rivalries  of  classes  which  cannot  but  be  equally 
fatal  to  victors  and  vanquished.  If  in  the  older  nations 
of  Europe  the  nobility  could  be  persuaded  to  forget 
their  relation  to  the  commons;  if  they  could  be  brought 
to  believe  that  they  might  be  more  selfish  or  less  just 


MANLY  STRENGTH.  155 

than  their  neighbours ;  if  they  were  to  forget  that  it 
was  for  helping  and  not  liindering  the  commonwealth 
that  their  ancestors  had  been  ennobled,  they  would 
assuredly  become  more  worthless,  more  utterly  corrupt, 
than  the  very  meanest  of  those  whom  they  would  have 
learned  to  despise.  And  if  the  commons  could  liing 
away  all  reverence  for  the  illustrious  dead,  if  they  were 
to  succeed  in  cutting  off  the  present  from  the  past,  and 
could  really  persuade  children  that  it  was  not  of  the 
smallest  consequence  who  their  fathers  were,  they 
would  by  the  very  same  stroke  cut  off  the  future  from 
the  present,  and  destroy  the  sources  of  permanent 
national  strength  and  glory.  For  the  generation  of 
men  that  should  neither  look  before  nor  after  would 
have  sunk  to  the  level  of  the  beasts  that  perish.  How 
often  have  demagogues,  and  political  and  social  adven- 
turers, in  these  few  last  years,  harangued  the  working 
classes  upon  the  rights  of  labour  and  the  tyranny  of 
capital !  They  have  reminded  them  that  by  the  sweat 
of  their  brows,  not  themselves  only,  but  their  employers 
have  been  gaining  their  bread.  They  have  told  them 
that  they,  sunk  as  they  were  too  often  in  extreme  pov- 
erty, were  the  source  of  all  the  wealth  of  the  country. 
They  have  urged  them  to  demand  a  far  larger  share  of 
that  wealth,  to  make  their  own  terms  with  their 
masters,  and  to  compel  their  fellow-labourers  also  to 
submit  to  the  same  conditions.  "  Be  men !"  these 
•perorating  demagogues  have  exclaimed  ;  "  let  no  greedy 
capitalist  put  his  foot  upon  your  necks,  or  wring  from 
you  those  heaps  of  treasure  which  he  displays  so 
proudly  to  his  own  glorification  and  your  disgrace." 
From  this  one-sided  counsel,  this  mean  interpretation 
of  the  needs  and  capacities  of  manhood,  have  come 


156  MANLY  STRENGTH. 

again  and  again,  for  the  labourers,  strikes  and  famine, 
and  for  the  employers  of  labour,  bankruptcy.  The 
tree  that  bears  such  fruit  can  scarcely  be  a  good  tree. 
Be  men,  the  most  sober-minded  counsellors  would  say 
to  the  working  classes,  and  therefore  be  not  the  mere 
slaves  of  impulse  and  blind,  ignorant  passion.  Don't 
imagine  that  the  distribution  of  wealth  is  quite  so 
simple  a  matter  as  the  orators  of  trades-unions  would 
have  you  suppose.  Eecollect  that  for  a  rapid  produc- 
tion (rapid  enough  to  keep  pace  with  the  necessities  of 
the  labouring  class)  abstinence  is  as  necessary  as  labour ; 
and  that  it  is  this  abstinence  which  produces  capital, 
and  capital  which  keeps  labourers  and  their  families 
alive  until  their  wages  become  due.  Indeed,  to  go  no 
further  into  these  details,  they  are  but  illustrations  of 
the  fact  that  we  are  members  one  of  another,  and  that 
one  cannot  become  permanently  and  truly  great  by  tlie 
mere  littleness  of  another.  Far  rather  is  it  true  that 
in  the  greatness,  even  the  commercial  greatness,  of  one 
all  the  community  are  sharers.  Happiness  can  come 
either  to  labourers  or  employers  of  labour  not  by  any 
vain  endeavour  to  promote  the  interests  of  a  class,  but 
by  rising  above  class  prejudices,  by  a  thorough  human 
culture,  by  discovering  and  obeying  those  laws  to  which 
the  wisdom  of  God  has  subjected  the  production  and 
distribution  of  wealth.  No  amount  of  passion,  no 
noisy  sophistry,  no  empty  cant  of  manhood,  will  ever 
do  the  work  that  must  be  done  before  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men  have  the  utmost  possible  enjoyment 
of  the  gifts  of  God. 

To  take  one  more  example  of  the  need  there  is  to 
show  ourselves  men,  I  may  remind  you  of  that  prin- 
ciple of  asceticism  which  has  jirevailed  through  the 


MANLY  STRENGTH.  157 

whole  history  of  the  Christian  Church,  and  also  in 
vast  regions  outside  Christendom.  I  say  the  principle, 
not  the  practice  of  asceticism.  There  have  been,  and 
easily  may  be  again,  times  when  the  practice  of  asceti- 
cism is  necessary.  It  may  very  safely  be  affirmed  that 
the  survival  of  the  Christian  religion  is  due  to  those 
heroic  souls  that  cut  themselves  wholly  off  from  the 
world  when  the  world  was  a  mere  cesspool  of  filth 
and  abomination  that  now  we  should  be  ashamed  even 
to  describe.  But  by  the  princijjle  of  asceticism  I 
mean  the  theory  that  it  is,  in  itself,  apart  from  its 
moral  and  spiritual  utility,  a  higher  form  of  Christian 
life — nay,  the  only  condition  of  spiritual  perfection. 
In  its  grosser  manifestations,  civilization  has  driven 
this  ascetic  principle  into  holes  and  corners,  and  Prot- 
estantism especially  has,  to  some  extent — and  often 
irrationally — repudiated  it.  S.  Simeon  no  longer  ad- 
dresses admiring  crowds  from  the  top  of  a  tall  pillar. 
S.  Thomas  himself  would  scarcely  be  to-day  admitted 
into  his  own  cathedral,  if  he  were  to  present  himself 
there  as  he  is  described  by  the  brilliant  but  too  preju- 
diced historian.*  Professional  mendicancy,  however 
pious,  finds  small  favour  with  the  police  magistrate,  and 
voluntary  and  useless  wretchedness  is  justly  considered 
odious.  Yet  it  may  be  feared  that,  just  possibly,  even  in 
our  modern  fraternities  and  sisterhoods,  we  may  have, 
unless  we  are  exceedingly  watchful,  too  much  of  the 
principle  instead  of  the  sacred  utility  of  asceticism. 
Puritanism,  too,  on  its  practical  side,  is  but  another — and 
a  far  more  uninviting  and  even  revolting — form  of  the 
same  principle ;  and  the  religious  world  still  seeks  to 
honour  God  by  despising  or  destroying  or  refusing  to  use 

*  Fi'oude. 


158  MANLY  STRENGTH. 

the  gifts  and  blessings  which  God  bestows  upon  them. 
That  mystic  glory  that  once  encircled  like  a  halo  the 
brows  of  the  priesthood  has,  indeed,  faded  away.  But 
ministers  of  religion  are  still  expected  to  be  much 
better  than  their  neighbours  are  required  to  be ;  and  their 
superior  goodness  is  to  manifest  itself  largely  by  absti- 
nence from  those  enjoyments  which  are  forbidden  to 
none  but  themselves.  Thus,  the  mere  negative  side  of 
religion  is  put  above  the  positive;  those  means  which 
are  useful  only  for  securing  the  highest  spiritual  ends 
are  exalted  above  the  ends  themselves.  Self-denial  is 
counted  a  higher  virtue  than  fellowship  with  God,  and 
to  sacrifice  is  deemed  better  than  to  obey.  For  it  is 
surely  disobedience  to  fling  back  God's  gifts  to  Him 
unused;  to  allow  ourselves  no  rest  from  the  heavy 
burdens  of  a  weary  life ;  to  shut  our  eyes  to  the  beauties 
of  Nature,  and  the  triumphs  of  science  and  art ;  to 
look  with  cold  disdain  upon  the  ordinary  occupations 
of  our  neighbours,  and  to  empty  our  own  of  that  piety 
and  divineness  without  which  they  must  become 
desecrated  and  evil.  "  Show  yourself  then  a  man  "  ;  do 
not  bring  to  God  in  your  own  imperfectly-developed 
nature,  and  your  own  joyless  experience,  the  halt,  the 
maimed,  and  the  blind  for  sacrifice.  Do  not  presume 
to  take  up  a  cross  which  was  never  meant  for  you,  nor 
think  so  boastfully  of  your  own  strength  as  to  fancy 
that  you  can  carry  a  far  heavier  burden  than  life  itself 
Avill  most  surely  lay  upon  you.  Bring  to  God  the 
mirth  of  childhood,  the  strength  of  youth,  the  firm 
purpose  and  wise  counsels  of  mature  life,  the  ripe 
experience  and  quiet  serenity  of  old  age.  Honour  God 
in  the  summer's  sunshine,  and  not  only  in  the  bleak 
storms  of  winter.     "  Praise  Him  with  the  timbrel  and 


MANLY  STRENGTH. 


159 


dance,  praise  Him  with  all  stringed  instruments  and 
organs."  In  sport  and  work,  in  solitude  and  society, 
"  show  yourself  a  man." 

Again,  though   departing  somewhat  further    even 
than  I  have  already  done  from  the  original  meaning  of 
the  words  of  the  text,  I  may  remind  you  that  it  has 
become  more  than  ever  necessary  that  you  should  in 
some  practical  way  show  yourselves  men,  and  not  take 
it  for  granted  that  people  will  believe  that  a  tree  is 
good  whether  it  happens  to  bear  fruit  or  not.     There 
have  been  times  when  the  status  gave  dignity  to  the 
man— now  the  man  must  give  dignity  to  his  status. 
That    you  have    had    higher  advantages  than  your 
neighbours,  will  not  be  accepted  as  a  complete  demon- 
stration  that  you  have  made   a  good  use  of  them; 
moreover,  education  seems  too  often  to  be  regarded  by 
the  lower  portion  of  the  middle  class  only  as  a  neces- 
sary evil;  while  by  the  actually  working  class  it  is 
regarded  more  and  more  as  a  sure  road  to  advancement, 
the  way  by  which  they  may  arrive  both  at  wealth  and 
a  higher  social  position.     By  the  one  it  is  regarded  as 
somewhat  expensively  ornamental,  by  the  other  as 
sternly  and  unbeautifully  useful.     If  these  different 
estimates  of  its  worth  should  last  long,  the  education 
of  the  two  classes  will  change  places,  and  those  from 
whom  most  might  fairly  be  expected  will  really  possess 
least.     In  a  similar  manner,  the  education  of  women 
may  quite  easily  become  superior  to  the  average  educa- 
tion of  men ;  for  women  are  claiming  culture  as  a  right 
long  unjustly  withheld  from  them;  their  enjoyment  of 
it  is  a  comparatively  new  and  therefore  most  delicious 
experience.     They  seek  for  it  with  all  the  ardour  of  a 
fresh   pursuit.    A   boy  has  generally  so  many  more 


X60  MANLY  STRENGTH. 

educational  advantages  than  a  girl,  that  he  ought  to  be 
very  far  her  superior;  but  if  a  boy  be  idle,  and  a  girl 
industrious,  the  boy's  higher  advantages  are  thrown 
away.  In  short,  the  question  that  will  be  asked  of  you 
is  not  this :  What  have  you  had  the  opportunity  of 
learning? — but  this:  What  do  you  actually  know? 
You  will  not  be  asked.  What  would  you  have  been  able 
now  to  do  if  you  had  made  the  use  you  ought  to  have 
made  of  all  your  advantages  ?  but  you  will  be  asked. 
What  can  you  actually  do  ?  A  merchant  must  have 
his  business  done  to-day.  Law,  medicine,  the  army 
and  navy,  and,  we  may  surely  also  say,  the  Church, 
require  actual  ability  of  the  proper  kind,  and  not  dim 
recollections  of  Avhat  once  was  possible,  and  vain 
regrets  that  it  is  possible  no  longer.  Show  yourselves 
men,  then,  not  by  blowing  your  own  trumpets  on  all 
occasions,  nor  by  requiring  those  about  you  to  take  it 
for  granted  that  you  necessarily  are  what  you  ought  to 
be  ;  but  by  stepping  at  once  into  the  place  where  you 
are  needed,  and  doing  in  a  workmanlike  way  whatever 
work  of  hand  or  brain  needs  to  be  done.  And  what 
(may  I  venture  to  request  you  to  ask  yourselves  ?)  do 
you  really  know  ?  what  can  you  thoroughly  well  do  ? 
what  single  subject  is  there  in  which  you  feel  perfectly 
at  home  ?  Is  even  your  daily  business  more  to  you 
than  a  routine  of  weary  details  ?  Do  you  understand 
the js?-^!?^^^?^^  upon  which  its  success  depends?  And 
when  your  day's  work  is  over,  when  you  have  ceased 
for  a  while  to  be  the  shopkeeper,  the  clerk,  the  merchant, 
the  lawyer — when,  in  a  word,  you  have  simply  to  come 
back  to  your  own  manhood — what  do  you  find  there? 
Have  you  no  better  way  of  spending  your  evenings 
than  in  utterly  empty  conversation  and  mere  vanity? 


MANLY  STRENGTH. 


161 


What  kind  of  books  can  you  read  with  thorough 
enjoyment?    What  region  of  Nature  is  there  that  you 
visit  with  the  real  pleasure  of  an  intimate  friend? 
What  plants  or  animals  do  you  care  for?    In  what 
department  of  science  or  art  do  you  feel  yourself  at 
home  ?    Poetry,  history,  philosophy— are  these  able  to 
charm  away  your  weariness,  and  to  refresh  your  spirit, 
and  through  that  your  body  also,  for  another  day's 
toil?    Alas!  you  know  far  too  well  in  how  terribly 
diflferent  a  manner  it  is  possible  and  easy  for  young 
men  to  waste  their  leisure  and  throw  away  themselves. 
Of  what  remains,  I  can  offer  only  suggestions  and  a 
bare  outline.     Man  has  the  knoAvledge  of  right  and 
wrong.    I  need  not  stop  to  inquire  whence  this  knowl- 
edge   comes.     Were  we  to  accept    the  very  lowest 
hypothesis,  we  might  be  almost  content  to  admit  that 
it  may  have  been  suggested  to  him  by  experiences  that 
even  the  brutes  themselves  are  not  entirely  without ; 
by   pleasure  and    pain,   utility  and  mischief.     Still, 
however  suggested,  it  is  of  its   own  kind.     Right  is 
more  than  usefulness,  even  though  usefulness  may  be 
its  invariable  sign.     Even  utilitarianism  itself,  in  the 
hands  of  its  latest  and  most  accomplished  expositor, 
Mr.  J.  S.  Mill,  acquires  a  beauty,  and  grandeur,  and 
comprehensiveness  which  conceal  what,  in  the  judg- 
ment of  many  thinkers,  must  forever  remain  its  in- 
curable defects.     But,  at  any  rate,  to  do  right,  how- 
ever we  may  find  out  what  right  is,  is  manly,  and  to 
do  wrong  is  unmanly.     We  have  a  higher  nature  than 
the  beasts,  by  which  it  is  possible  for  us  to  do  the 
things  contained  in  God's  law,  and  the  unrighteous 
man    is    neglecting    the    noblest    part  of    his    true 
humanity. 


162  MANLY  STRENGTH. 

Again,  we  must  show  ourselves  men  by  gentleness 
and  charity,  by  sincere  affection,  by  bearing  one 
another's  burdens,  by  forbearing  and  forgiving  one 
another  if  any  man  have  a  quarrel  against  any.  Love, 
with  all  its  fitting  manifestations,  is  not  effeminate,  nor 
is  it  any  sign  of  manliness  to  be  cold-hearted.  That 
pernicious  theory  of  the  difference  of  the  two  sexes 
which  would  make  women  foolishly  fond  and  men 
wisely  cold,  is  surely  going  the  way  of  all  the  earth ; 
for  men  and  women  alike  are  to  follow  as  dear  children 
that  All-Avise  God  who  is  Love,  the  Maker,  and  Ruler, 
and  Father  of  the  spirits  of  all  flesh. 

And  last,  though  not  least,  it  is  the  highest  glory  of 
man,  it  is  his  eternal  life,  to  know  the  very  God ;  to 
obey  Him,  not  by  a  blind  instinct,  but  with  the  cheer- 
fulness of  knowledge  and  sympathy.  It  is  surely  un- 
manly to  admire  all  beauty  but  that  which  is  the  very 
fountain,  the  very  model  and  archetype,  of  all  beauty ; 
to  rejoice  in  the  order  of  the  universe  and  find  no 
pleasure  in  the  contemplation  of  Him  from  whose 
wisdom  and  goodness  all  order  comes  ;  to  recognize  the 
ties  of  kindred  and  the  bonds  of  affection,  and  to  have 
no  eye  to  perceive  that  infinite,  all-embracing  Love  of 
which  earthly  love  is  but  the  image  and  copy.  And 
if  religion  itself  is  on  the  speculative  side  the  highest 
philosophy,  and  on  the  practical  side  the  perfection  of 
virtue,  the  advice  of  David  to  his  son  may  well  proceed 
from  manliness  to  piety — "  Be  thou  strong,  and  show 
thyself  a  man ;  and  keep  the  charge  of  the  Lord  thy 
God,  to  walk  in  His  ways,  to  keep  His  statutes,  and 
His  commandments,  and  His  judgments,  and  His  testi- 
monies." "  The  fear  of  the  Lord  is  the  beginning  of 
wisdom."    "  God  understandeth  the  way  thereof,  and 


MANLY  STRENGTH.  163 

He  knoweth  the  place  thereof:  for  He  looketh  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth,  and  seeth  under  the  whole  heaven  ; 
to  make  the  weight  for  the  winds ;  and  He  weigheth 
the  waters  by  measure.  When  He  made  a  decree  for 
the  rain,  and  a  way  for  the  lightning  of  the  thunder, 
then  He  did  see  it  and  declare  it ;  He  prepared  it,  yea, 
and  searched  it  out.  And  unto  7nan  He  said,  Behold 
the  fear  of  the  Lord,  that  is  wisdom,  and  to  depart  from 
evil  is  understanding." 

It  is  unmanly  to  be  without  religion,  to  live  godless 
lives ;  but  we  must  not  forget  that  a  false  religion,  or 
a  dwarfed  religion,  may  do  more  than  all  other  things 
put  together  to  destroy  our  manliness,  and  especially 
to  make  us  cowards.  The  fear  of  hell,  and  the  spirit 
of  bondage  instead  of  the  spirit  of  adoption,  have  again 
and  again  broken  every  tie  by  which  men  are  bound 
to  one  another.  They  have  destroyed  loyalty  and 
patriotism ;  they  have  divorced  husbands  and  wives, 
they  have  set  at  variance  parents  and  children,  they 
have  severed  friends;  they  have  hindered  commerce  and 
forbidden  science,  and  stifled  the  utterance  of  honest 
thought ;  they  have  made  men  afraid,  even  to  examine 
that  which  without  examination  can  neither  be 
honoured  nor  admired.  Men  have  been  taught  to  lie 
for  God,  and  to  do  evil  that  good  might  come.  Even 
in  our  own  day  there  are  forms  of  religion  which  are 
the  implacable  foes  of  knowledge,  criticism  and  prog- 
ress. "  Show  yourselves  then  men  "  in  every  depart- 
ment of  your  religious  life.  Do  not  be  afraid  if  it 
should  be  necessary,  to  examine  the  foundations  of  your 
faith.  Do  not  shrink  from  those  inquiries  the  object 
of  which  is  to  find  truth,  however  long  and  painful 
the  search  may  be.     Do  not  be  afraid  to  confess  what 


IGi  MANLY  STRENGTH. 

you  really  believe,  or  to  deny  what  you  disbelieve.  Be 
sure  that  you  have  by  no  means  yet  reached  that  per- 
fect knowledge  for  which  the  human  spirit  longs,  and 
with  which  God  has  promised  to  satisfy  it.  Every  age 
has  altered — at  least  by  legitimate  development — the 
creed  of  the  age  which  went  before  it.  There  are  no 
two  men  living  who  in  every  respect  know  alike, 
believe  alike,  and  express  themselves  alike.  Be  sure 
that  you  must  be  indeed  foolish  if  you  do  not  know 
more  than  you  did  a  year  ago,  or  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ago ;  and  do  not  attempt  to  put  the  new  wine  of  your 
enlarged  experience  into  old  bottles.  Sects  and  parties, 
with  their  bitter  clamour,  may  seek  to  frighten  you 
from  that  path  where  the  light  shines  more  and  more 
unto  the  perfect  day.  Even  in  this  nineteenth  century 
you  may  find  men  who  think  they  would  do  God 
service  by  calling  down  fire  from  heaven  upon  all  who 
differ  from  themselves.  "  Be  thou  therefore  strong, 
and  show  thyself  a  man  " — a  man  in  virtue  and  godli- 
ness, in  truth  and  courage  and  charity. 

But  I  must  add  one  last  word.  The  object  of  seek- 
ing is  to  find  ;  and,  when  we  have  found,  the  seeking 
is  over.  Surely  the  chief  duty  of  man  is  not  to  be  ever 
inquiring,  but  to  discover,  to  believe,  to  act.  The 
greatest  proof  of  your  strength  will  be  to  adhere  to  the 
right ;  to  resist  the  everlasting  restlessness  which 
characterizes  our  age ;  "  to  stand,"  as  S.  Paul  says, 
"  and  having  done  all,  to  stand." 


ABSOLUTION.* 

Jes'ihS  therefore,  said  to  them  again.  Peace  be  unto  you  :  as 
the  Father  hath  sent  Me,  even  so  send  I  you.  And  when  He 
had  said  this  He  breathed  on  them,  and  saith  unto  them,  Re- 
ceive ye  the  Holy  Ohost :  whosesoever  sins  ye  forgive,  they  are 
forgiven  unto  them :  whosesoever  sins  ye  retain,  they  are  re- 
tained.— S.  John  xx.  21-23. t 

It  is  one  of  the  very  many  advantages  of  a  definite 
order  in  the  conduct  of  the  divine  service — including 
a  fixed  and  invariable  series  of  Scripture-readings — 
that  it  compels  both  clergy  and  laity  to  give  some 
careful  consideration  to  those  very  passages  of  Holy 
Scripture  which,  for  reasons  good  or  bad,  they  might 
be  inclined  to  overlook  or  to  avoid.  The  reasons  are 
too  often  exceedingly  bad.  They  are  intellectual  idle- 
ness or  cowardice,  the  dread  of  being  compelled  to 
come  to  some  conclusion  on  questions  which  we  Avish 
to  keep  "  open,"  the  fear  of  offending  those  whose  kind 

*  Preached  on  the  first  Sunday  after  Easter,  1883.  This 
sermon,  as  printed,  is  less  rhetorical  and,  I  hope,  more  complete 
and  careful  than  the  sermon  I  preached — though  substantially 
tlie  same. 

t  elwev  ovv  avrolg  [6  Irjaovg']  -rraTiiv  'Elp^v?/  vjuiv  •  Kadiog  (nriaTa'AKev 
jie  6  naTTjp,  Kayu  ire/iTTu  v/iag.  kuI  tovto  eIttgjv  svecpva/jnev  Kal  Myst 
avToig  Adfiere  rcvEv/ia  ayiov '  av  rivuv  axpjjre  rdf  dtj-apriag  axptuvrat 
avTolg'  av  Tivuv  KpaTTJre  KeKpaTrjvrai..  The  reading  (K^euvrm  is,  I 
think,  the  true  reading— but  it  is  not  absolutely  certain.  It 
may  have  arisen  from  a  wish  to  adapt  it  to  the  perfect  KEKpdrr/vrai. 
The  reading  d(f>ievTai  gives  an  excellent  meaning,  and  nothing 
of  doctrinal  importance  is  involved  in  the  choice  between  the  two. 
For  MS.  authority,  see  Tischendorf  (Ed.  viii-i  Crit.  Major). 


166  ABSOLUTION. 

feeling  and  hearty  co-operation  we  may  believe  to  be 
essential  not  only  to  our  comfort,  but  to  our  ministerial 
success.  But  the  reasons  are  often  very  good.  They 
are  the  fear  of  presuming  to  go  beyond  our  authority, 
of  seeming  to  close  questions  which  really  are  "  open, " 
of  distressing  good  people  with  doubts  and  troubles 
which  would  never  otherwise  have  occurred  to  them. 
We  have  no  right  to  insist  upon  compelling  other 
people  to  journey  with  us  over  the  arid  desert  of  our 
own  mere  inquiries,  to  say  nothing  of  our  uncertainties 
and  misgivings.  Practical  religion  is  possible,  thank 
God,  for  very  ignorant  people,  and  "  invincible  ignor- 
ance "  is  not  a  "  mortal  sin."  It  is  a  very  rash  and 
dangerous  experiment  to  try  to  improve  the  religion 
of  very  ignorant  people,  unless  we  are  absolutely  certain 
that  after  we  have  destroyed  the  religion  they  have  we 
can  not  only  provide  them  with,  but  persuade  them  to 
accept,  what  is  for  them  a  better. 

But  the  passage  I  have  just  read  to  you  cannot 
possibly  be  regarded  with  indifference.  These  words 
are  the  words  of  our  Saviour  Christ.  That  is  their 
chief  significance.  But  it  is  a  matter  of  no  small 
importance  that  they  are  included  in  our  own  Ordinal ; 
they  were  addressed  to  vie  at  that  solemn  moment  when 
I  was  ordained  a  priest  in  Christ's  Holy  Church.  It 
is  surely  worth  asking  whether  they  mean  something 
or  nothing ;  and,  if  they  mean  something,  what  that 
something  is.  This  is  a  question  as  important  for  you 
as  for  me.  Have  I,  or  have  I  not,  authority  to  minister 
to  you  these  divine  consolations  and  awful  warnings  ? 
May  I  preach,  not  only  to  a  promiscuous  congregation, 
but  to  each  of  you  2}ersonaUy,  that — on  the  assumption 
of  your  true  contrition  and  all  which  that  implies — 


ABSOLUTION.  167 

you  personally  are  forgiven  ?  Have  I  power  to  say  to 
you — on  certain  conditions — your  sins  are  "  retained  "; 
you  are  not  sincere;  and  you  must  invert  yourselves, 
begin  life  anew  and  on  wholly  different  lines,  or  there 
is  nothing  for  you  but  death  f 

And  here  it  may  be  well  to  relieve  your  minds  of 
expectations  or  fears  which  the  very  text  itself  may 
have  suggested  to  you.  But  what  a  condition  we  are 
in  when  the  mere  repetition  of  Christ's  words  almost 
frightens  us !  You  cannot  hear  them  without  inwardly 
asking,  "Oh!  tohat  tiowf  Is  the  preacher  going  to 
recommend  '  auricular  confession ' ;  to  tell  us  that 
unless  we  come  and  tell  all  our  wretched  history,  our 
sins  and  remorse  and  shame,  to  him,  God  will  never 
forgive  us?  Those  words  he  has  just  read  cannot 
mean  that.  If  they  do But  they  do  not.  Per- 
haps they  mean  nothing,  or  nothing  important.  Surely 
he  will  be  prudent."  I  hope  you  are  prepared  to  take 
it  for  granted  of  every  clergyman  that  if  he  were  con- 
vinced that  any  doctrine  whatever  were  undoubtedly 
true,  and  of  great  practical  importance,  his  only 
possible  "  prudence "  would  be  to  force  it  upon  your 
acceptance  by  all  the  power  which  God  may  have 
given  him.  Your  minister  cannot  possibly  be  "your 
servant  for  Jesus' sake"  unless  he  "preaches  Christ 
Jesus  as  Lord."  Loyalty  to  Him  is  at  the  foundation 
of  all  loyalty  to  you.  And,  for  my  own  part,  if  I  came 
to  believe  the  Tridentine  doctrine  of  "  the  Sacrament 
of  Penance,"  I  might  be  betrayed  by  cowardice  or 
self-interest,  but  I  should  have  7io  moral  alternative 
but  to  accept  and  proclaim  it  with  all  its  consequences. 

But  my  object  this  morning  is  not  to  encourage  in 
our  own  Church — nor  in  this  parish,  over  Avliich  alone 


168  ABSOLUTION, 

I  have  any  kind  of  jurisdiction — the  practice  of  Auric- 
iilar  Confession;  but  to  expound,  as  far  as  I  can,  a 
passage  of  Scripture.  I  may  say,  however,  that  if  I 
believed  the  Tridentine  doctrine  of  "  the  Sacrament  of 
Penance,"  I  should  still  find  very  grave — indeed,  in  my 
judgment,  fatal  and  insuperable — objections  to  the  re- 
vival of  a  general  practice  of  Auricular  Confession  in 
our  own  Church,  under  our  present  circumstances. 
Whatever  else  the  Church  of  Eome  may  be,  she  is  a 
standing  example  of  what  seems  to  me  an  almost  super- 
human sagacity.  It  is  not  for  nothing  that  she  has 
been  mistress  of  Christendom  for  so  many  centuries ; 
or  that  she  has  inherited  the  organizing  and  adminis- 
trative capacity  of  the  Eoman  Republic  and  the  Eoman 
Empire.  She  has  known,  again  and  again,  the  bitter- 
ness of  persecution.  She  has  put  her  foot  on  the  necks 
of  the  rulers  of  the  world.  She  has  not  only  survived, 
but  conquered,  Roman  civilization.  She  has  withstood 
and  directed  the  inrush  of  barbarous  hordes,  and  pre- 
sided at  the  birth,  and  controlled  the  education,  of 
nascent,  vigorous  nations.  She  has  passed  through  the 
throes  of  the  Reformation,  and  deeply  pondered  the 
objections  of  Reformers  to  her  doctrine,  her  ritual 
and  her  discipline.  She  has  gathered  her  experience 
from  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men,  from  all  races, 
from  all  forms  of  government.  If  sometimes  we  almost 
hate  her,  we  cannot  help  feeling  that  we  are  yet  more 
sure  that  we  love  her.  We  have  affinities  with  narrow 
sects,  with  wild  liberalism  and  "  unchartered  freedom  "; 
but,  if  we  were  compelled  to  choose  between  them,  the 
home,  the  resting-place  of  our  spirits,  would  be  found, 
in  the  end,  to  be  far  more  with  her  than  with  them. 
At  any  rate,  she  knows  human  nature,  and  she  knows 
"  the  Sacrament  of  Penance." 


ABSOLUTION.  169 

She  knows  that  auricular  confession,  though  she 
believes  it  to  be  "  generally  "  necessary  to  salvation,  is 
also  encompassed  by  very  serious  dangers.  There  are 
dangers  arising  out  of  the  possible  inexperience  of  the 
confessor,  or  his  want  of  method.  There  are  moral 
and  spiritual  dangers  arising  out  of  the  mutual  relations 
of  confessor  and  penitent — out  of  the  sometimes  awful 
suggestiveness  of  what  one  may  say  and  the  other  be 
bound  to  hear.  There  are  dangers  of  scandal,  arising 
out  of  secrecy  and  close  intimacy.  Neither  the  Koman 
nor  any  other  Church  can  command  perfect  instruments 
for  the  doing  of  her  work ;  but  the  Roman  Church  has 
taken  the  utmost  possible  precautions  against  every  one 
of  the  dangers  of  which  I  have  just  spoken.  I  quote 
from  the  article  on  "  The  Sacrament  of  Penance  "  in 
the  Catholic  Dictionary,"^  a  paragi-aph  which  very  many 

*  This  dictionary,  i^ublished  by  the  Neiv  York  Catholic  Ptib- 
Ueation  Society,  is  so  far  authoritative  that  it  may  certainly 
be  accepted  by  Protestants  as  approximately  accurate  as  a 
standard  of  Roman  doctrine.  It  is  remarkably  fair  and  learned. 
See  also  the  following  Rubrics  from  the  Rituale  Romanum 
(Ordo  Ministrandi  Sacramentum  Poanitenti(B) :  "In  Ecclesia, 
non  autem  in  privatis  .-edibus,  Confessiones  [Sacerdos]  audiat,  nisi 
ex  causa  rationabili,  quje  cum  inciderit,  studeat  tameu  id  decent! 
ac^a^e?i,^i  loco  prtestare.  Habeat  in  Ecclesia  sedem  confessio- 
nalem,  in  qua  sacras  Confessiones  excipiat,  qufe  sedes  patenti, 
conspicuo,  et  apto  Eeclesi;e  loco  posita,  crate  perforata  inter 

poenitentem  et  Sacerdotem  sit  insfructa Sed  caveat 

[Sacerdos],  ne  curiosis  aut  inutilibus  interrogationibus  quem- 
quam  detineat,  praasertim  juniores  utriusque  sexus,  vel  alios  de 
eo  quod  ignorant,  imprudenter  interrogans,  ne  scandalum 
patiantur,  indeque  peccare  discant."  Protestants  often  forget 
that  when  confession  is  compulsory,  the  priest  is  likely  to  be 
tempted  far  oftener  by  the  weariness  of  routine  than  by  the 
excitement  of  romance. 


170  ABSOLUTION. 

of  our  very  "high"  Churchmen  would  do  well  to 
ponder. 

There  is  little  in  the  laborious  work  of  the  confessional  to 
satisfy  curiosity,  for  the  priest  learns  nothing  except  the  num- 
ber and  species  of  sins  committed,  and  he  is  bound  under  the 
most  sacred  obligations  to  abstain  from  all  unnecessary  ques- 
tions, particularly  from  all  such  as  might  convey  knowledge  of 
sins  previously  unknown  to  the  penitent.  He  has  to  decide 
according  to  the  principles  of  an  elaborate  casuistry  which  he 
has  studied  for  years,  and  in  which  he  has  been  examined  by  his 
superiors,  before  he  enters  the  confessional.  There  is  little 
room  for  tyranny  on  his  part,  for  the  faithful  know  well  that 
they  may  have  recourse  to  any  approved  confessor.  Here,  as 
elsewhere,  holy  things  may  be  profaned.  But  the  Church 
deprives  a  priest  of  the  power  to  absolve  an  accomplice,  rigor- 
ously punishing  any  attempt  to  do  so  ;  and  were  a  priest  so 
miserable  as  to  abuse  the  confessional  for  bad  ends,  then  the 
person  to  whom  he  had  spoken  wrongly  could  not  be  absolved, 
even  by  another  priest,  till  he  or  she  had  communicated  the  name 
of  the  criminous  clerk  to  the  Bishop  of  the  Diocese.  Such  cases 
are  necessarily  of  very  rare  occurrence,  for  sin  of  this  kind 
would  involve  almost  inevitable  ruin  to  the  priest.  Of  all 
pastoral  ministrations  we  firmly  believe  there  is  none  which 
involves  a  more  self-denying  devotion  to  a  monotonous  duty, 
none  where  the  good  eifects  are  so  plain  and  visible,  and  very 
few  which  are  more  seldom  marred  by  human  weakness  and  sin. 

Now,  the  insuperable  and  fatal  objection  to  the  revival 
of  the  practice  of  Auricular  Confession,  in  our  own 
Church  and  in  existing  circumstances,  is  this:  that  it  is 
accompanied  hjnot  one  of  the  absolutely  necessary  safe- 
guards provided  by  the  Church  of  Rome.  On  no  theory, 
except  the  extremest  Low-Church  theory,  can  a  priest 
be  justified,  in  ordinary  cases,  in  hearing  confessions  and 
administering  Sacramental  absolution  unless  he  has  re- 
ceived, from  a  competent  authority,  jurisdiction  for  that 


ABSOLUTION.  171 

purpose.  Poiuer — inherent  power — is  given  him  by  his 
ordination ;  but  the  right  to  exercise  that  power  in  some 
particular  place,  and  over  some  particular  2ieople,  is  not 
given  him  by  ordination.  The  consensus  of  opinion, 
and  of  authoritative  decisions,  on  this  point  is  so  com- 
plete that  it  would  be  idle  to  give  separate  references. 
The  only  person  who  can  give  a  priest  jurisdiction  in 
this  matter  is,  in  our  Church,  his  Bishop — the  Ordi- 
nary of  the  diocese.  Some  of  the  priests  Avho  habitually 
hear  confessions  in  our  Church  may  indeed  have  received 
this  authority,  but  I  do  not  believe  that  very  many  of 
them  have;  and  in  many  of  our  dioceses  it  is  morally 
certain  that  they  have  not ;  it  is  morally  certain  tliat 
they  are  acting  in  known  opposition  to  the  Bishop 
from  whom  all  their  powers  are,  at  least  on  their  own 
theory,  derived.  Nor  have  they  been  instructed  in 
"  casuistry " — that  is  to  say,  in  a  methodical  and 
harmonious  way  of  dealing  with  the  innumerable  cases 
of  conscience  which  may  come  before  them.  Nor — 
I  am  inclined  to  say,  above  all — are  they  protected  in 
hearing  confessions  by  "  the  armour  of  light,"  by  per- 
fect publicity.  They  know  that  their  practice,  rightly 
or  wrongly,  is  regarded  with  suspicion.  They  dare 
not  put  up  a  "  confessional "  in  their  churches.*  They 
hear  confessions  in  vestries,  or  in  their  own  houses. 
They  are  at  the  mercy  of  any  lewd  woman  who  may 
choose  to  "blackmail"  them.  They  are,  thus  far,  out 
of  all  harmony  with  Catholic  usage  and  with  common 

*In  some  very  few  churches  where  confessions  have  been 
very  frequent,  "confessionals"  have  been  put  up,  and  have 
been  removed — I  presume,  in  the  absence  of  legal  authority,  by 
the  persuasion — at  any  rate,  by  the  influence  of  the  Bishop  of 
the  Diocese. 


172  ABSOLUTION. 

prudence.  This — and  not  anything  doctrinal,  or  in 
addition  to  anything  doctrinal — is  the  objection  which 
many  consider  insuperable  to  the  revival  in  our  own 
Church,  and  in  existing  circumstances,  of  the  general 
practice  of  Auricular  Confession. 

In  reply  it  may  be  argued  plausibly — and,  to  many 
minds,  conclusively — that  the  Eeformation  was  exceed- 
ingly imperfect  and  inconsistent.  Great  changes  Avere 
made  without  any  careful  consideration  of  the  effects  of 
those  changes  upon  the  general  balance  and  proportion 
of  what  was  intended  to  be  left  unaltered.  The 
intention  of  Henry  VIII. — so  far  as  it  was  theological 
or  ecclesiastical,  and  apart  from  his  too  manifest  deter- 
mination to  enrich  himself  and  his  new  nobility  by  a 
wholesale  confiscation  of  the  property  of  the  Church — 
was  to  put  himself  in  the  place  of  the  Roman  Pontiff. 
But  he  did  not  realize  that  the  reverence  of  the  English 
people  for  a  very  popular  king  was  exceedingly  different, 
botli  in  kind  and  in  degree,  from  the  reverence  of 
English  Churchmen  for  a  Pope.  He  did  not  realize 
the  impossibility  of  uniting  these  feelings  into  one, 
and  centring  them  upon  a  single  individual.  He  did 
not  remember  how  much  was  involved  in  the  fact  that 
he  himself  was  not  even  a  priest,  much  less  a  patriarch ; 
and  that  the  crown  of  England  might  descend  upon  a 
woman.  He  did  not  accurately  estimate  what  was 
involved  in  the  fact  that,  though  he  for  the  most  part 
scrupulously  adhered  to  legal  forms,  all  the  acts  of  his 
Bishops  and  convocations  were  rendered  morally, 
canonically,  religiously  worthless  by  the  coercion  to 
which  he  habitually  subjected  them.  He  altered  what 
he  wished  to  have  altered  with  the  forced  "consent" 
of  those  without  whose  consent  the   changes  would 


ABSOLUTION.  173 

have  been  impossible;  he  did  not  trouble  himself 
about  the  effect  of  putting  a  new  patch  into  an  old 
garment,  or  new  wine  into  old  skins.  He  was  suc- 
ceeded by  EdAvard  VI.,  or,  more  accurately,  by  a  set 
of  unprincipled  statesmen  who  were,  perhaps,  the  most 
worthless  rulers  that  England  had  ever  known.  Then 
came  the  reaction.  If  Mary  had  not  been  infatuated 
by  Philip  and  enslaved  by  Spain;  if  she  had  been 
under  the  guidance  of  such  statesmen  as  Sir  Thomas 
More,  to  whom  her  father  had  given  a  martyr's  crown ; 
the  Reformation  would  have  been  reversed,  and  a 
joyous  nation  would  have  gone  back  to  their  old 
religion,  "  received  their  Maker  "  at  their  old  altars,  and 
contrived  to  unite  national  liberty  with  Catholic  Unity. 
Elizabeth  had  to  govern  a  nation  exasperated  by 
national  humiliation  and  domestic  suffering  and  Spanish 
cruelty ;  she  had  to  deal  with  Protestantism  in  a  rage ; 
she  was  also  determined  to  assert  her  own  Tudor 
individuality;  and  so  the  course  of  the  Reformation 
was  yet  further  deflected.  In  fact,  it  never  had  either 
a  definite  starting-point  or  a  definite  goal.  In  this 
religious  and  ecclesiastical  chaos  people  lived  "from 
hand  to  mouth."  All  kinds  of  "jurisdictions"  might 
have  lapsed  or  emerged.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
general  practice  of  Auricular  Confession  had  been 
made  optional,  and  had  been  largely  discouraged. 
Later  on — down  to  the  accession  of  William  III. — it 
had  been  becoming  all  but  entirely  extinct.  It  would 
have  been  scarcely  worth  while  to  invest  men  with  a 
"jurisdiction"  to  which  nobody  would  submit,  or 
elaborately  train  them  for  a  service  which  nobody 
would  require.  If  our  modern  "confessors,"  it  may 
be  argued,  have  neither  training  nor  "jurisdiction," 


ITtt  ABSOLUTION. 

this  is  a  mere  accident.  Circumstances  now  have 
changed.  What  nobody  wanted  fifty  years  ago,  thousands 
of  people  want  to-day.  If  we  have  no  "jurisdiction,"  we 
have,  at  any  rate,  the  "  power  "  to  give  them  what  they 
want;  and  the  very  fact  that  no  "jurisdiction  "  is  asked 
or  provided  for,  implies  that  the  exercise  of  our  "  power  " 
is  left  to  our  own  discretion. 

But  the  very  fact  that  "circumstances  have  changed" 
invalidates  the  conclusion  which  it  is  intended  to  prove. 
The  very  fact — if  it  be  a  fact — that  thousands  of  people 
are  crowding  to  the  confessional,  not  under  a  legal,  but 
under  a  moral  compulsion,  renders  the  old  restrictions, 
for  the  old  reasons,  absolutely  necessary.  Even  the 
youngest  parish  priest  will  be  required  sometimes  to 
give  advice,  however  limited  his  experience.  A  priest 
who  has  been  in  charge  of  a  parish  for  thirty  or  forty 
years  must  have  heard  confessions — by  whatever  name 
he  chooses  to  call  them — liundreds  of  times  over.  But 
to  sit  in  some  one  definite  "tribunal"  of  divine  justice 
without  express  authority;  to  pronounce  sentence, 
whether  of  condemnation  or  acquittal,  Avithout  a 
definite  procedure — that  is  to  say  without  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  "  casuistry  " — is  simply  absurd.  If  nobody 
wants  to  confess,  there  is  no  need  either  for  jurisdiction 
or  protection  against  danger  and  scandal;  \i everyhody 
wants  to  confess,  both  these  are  absolutely  indispensable. 

I  have  made  these  remarks  not  because  I  should  be 
in  the  least  degree  afraid  of  recommending  to  you 
habitual  auricular  confession,  if  I  thought  it  right;  or 
of  discouraging  it,  if  I  thought  it  undesirable;  but 
because  I  think  you  ought  to  be  reminded  that  what 
seems  very  simple  to  untrained  minds  is  often,  in  the 
highest  degree,   complex   and  uncertain.      Religious 


ABSOLUTION.  175 

people,  in  our  day,  get  into  the  habit  of  putting, 
especially  to  the  clergy,  test  questions,  to  which  they 
think  they  may  reasonably  expect  a  definite  answer — 
"yes"  or  "no."  They  forget  that  there  are  many 
logical  contraries  which  are  not  contradictories.  They 
forget  that  the  very  terms  of  the  question,  which  seem 
to  them  so  unmistakable,  are  in  reality  entirely  ambig- 
uous. They  forget  that  what  may  be  right  for  one 
man  may  be  wrong  for  another ;  what  may  be  right  in 
highly  exceptional  cases  may  be  wrong  as  a  general 
rule;  what  may  be  right  with  certain  safeguards  may 
be  wrong,  and  even  absurd  and  fatal,  without  them. 
They  forget  that,  in  theological  and  ecclesiastical 
arguments,  strict  justice,  rigid  impartiality,  and 
Christian  charity,  are  of  even  greater  importance  than 
the  rules  of  the  syllogism.  And,  after  all,  both  our 
judgment  and  our  conduct  in  relation — if  I  may  express 
it  in  technical  terms — to  "  the  Sacrament  of  Penance," 
Avill  depend  upon  the  meaning  we  assign  to  those 
words  of  our  Blessed  Lord  which  I  have  taken  for 
this  morning's  text.  If  we  believe  that,  by  His 
authority,  a  priest  has  some  special  power  to  remit  our 
sins,  we  shall  go  to  him  for  absolution ;  and  we  shall 
leave  Am  to  settle  the  question  of  his  "jurisdiction" 
with  his  ecclesiastical  superiors.  If  we  think  the 
"jurisdiction"  as  necessary  as  the  power,  Ave  shall  find 
some  priest  who  has  both.  If  we  think  that  we  are  as 
well  oif  without  a  priest's  absolution  as  with  it,  we  shall 
unquestionably  let  him  alone. 

It  may  be  observed,  to  begin  with,  that  our  Lord's 
words  were  addressed  neither  to  all  the  Apostles  nor  to 
the  Apostles  alone,  S.  Thomas  was  unquestionably 
absent.     The  little  company,  assembled  in  the  room 


176  ABSOLUTION. 

where  "  the  doors  were  shut  for  fear  of  the  Jews,"  proba- 
bly included  some  women,  and  almost  certainly  the  dis- 
ciples from  Emmaus.  They  are  spoken  of  not  as  apostles, 
but  as  "  disciples."  It  might  seem,  therefore,  that  the 
power  to  remit  and  retain  sins,  Avhatever  that  power  may 
have  been,  was  given  not  simply  to  the  Apostles  and  their 
successors  or  delegates,  but  to  tlie  whole  Clmrch,  both 
men  and  women,  represented  in  that  little  gathering. 
And  this,  on  one  side,  is  in  entire  accord  with  the 
penitential  discipline  of  the  Church  for  several  cen- 
turies.* The  early  penitents  confessed  their  sins  to 
the  whole  congregation.  They  lay  outside  the  church, 
grovelling  in  sackcloth  and  filth  and  squalor,  weeping 
and  wailing,  beseeching  all  who  entered  to  intercede 
for  their  forgiveness.  It  may  be  said,  indeed,  that  the 
absolution  they  desired  was  the  remission  of  ecclesi- 
astical censures,  and  restoration  to  the  communion  of 
the  faithful — and  especially  permission  to  receive  again 
the  Holy  Eucharist.  But  this  must  have  involved  a 
judicial,  or  g?<«s/-judicial,  decision  that  they  were  also 
released  from  the  sins  which  had  caused  their  exclusion. 
That  absolution  is  the  gift  of  the  Church  is  explicitly 
fiJfjrmed  in  the  form  of  absolution  in  the  Anglican 
Office  for  the  Visitation  of  the  Sick :  "  Our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  who  hath  left  power  to  His  Church  to  absolve 
all  sinners  who  truly  repent  and  believe  in  Him,  of 
His  great  mercy  forgive  thee  thine  oflFenses:  and  by 
His  authority  committed  to  me,  I  absolve  thee  from  all 
thy  sins,  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son, 
and  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 

*See  the  very  learned  article  on  "  Penitence  "  in  Smith's  X)ic- 
tlonary  of  Christiitn  Anlujuiiies,  not  forgetting,  as  far  as 
possible,  to  consult  the  references. 


ABSOLUTION.  177 

But,  however  this  may  have  been,*  the  fact  that  the 
power  of  absolution  was  given  to  the  Church  is  by  no 
means  exclusive  or  contradictory  of  the  fact  that  it  was 
to  be  exercised — and  ought  to  be  exercised — only  by 
tJie  autJiorized  representatives  of  the  Church,  who  are 
also,  in  a  special  sense,  "the  ministers  of  Christ  and 
stewards  of  the  mysteries  of  God,"  It  is  an  invariable 
characteristic  of  a  high  organism  that  its  various  parts 
are  adapted  for  special  purposes  and  special  services 
which  no  other  parts  of  the  organism  can  perform. 
There  are,  I  believe,  living  beings  of  so  simple  and 
rudimentary  a  structure  that  they  may  be  turned  inside 
out  without  discomfort.  They  may  be  dimly  sensitive 
to  the  varying  intensity  of  light,  but  they  have  no  eye. 
They  may  have  vague  and  indefinable  feelings,  but 
they  have  no  special  organs  of  sensation.  They  assimi- 
late food,  but  they  have  no  alimentary  system,  and  are, 
so  to  speak,  all  stomach.  These,  however,  are  not  the 
highest,  but  the  lowest,  in  the  scale  of  life.  The 
moment,  by  special  creative  power  or  by  long  evolu- 
tion, a  living  creature  becomes  possessed  of  a  true  eye, 
it  must  see  by  means  of  its  eye,  and  not  otherwise. 
This  is  not  a  loss,  but  a  gain  ;  and  it  does  not  cease  to 
be  true  that  the  vision  which  the  eye  seems  to  be 
monopolizing  is  not  for  the  eye  itself,  but  for  the  living 
creature  to  which  the  eye  belongs.  And  this  is 
equally,  or  even  more  conspicuously,  true  of  those 
highly  complex  organisms  which  we  call  society,  the 
nation,  the  Church.     It  is  beyond  all  question  that 

*  It  seems  plain  that  Christ  was  especially  addressing  the 
A])ostles  when  he  said,  "  As  the  Father  hath  sent  Me  even  so 
send  I  you."  These  words  can  scarcely  have  been  addressed  to 
the  holy  women,  nor  even  to  the  disciples  from  Emmaus. 


178  ABSOLUTION. 

Christ  Himself  appointed  apostles,  with  special  powers 
of  teaching  and  administration.  But  if  this  had  been 
otherwise,  the  very  nature  of  a  Church — or  of  any 
society  of  human  beings — would  have  produced  a 
"  division  of  labour,"  rulers,  teachers,  "  committees," 
presidents,  analogous  to  those  which  Christ  Himself 
appointed.  It  may  be  true  that,  in  the  sight  of  God, 
all  Christian  men  and  women  are  equal ;  it  is  much 
more  likely  to  be  true  that  they  are  equivalent.  Most 
certainly  they  are  not  identical.  "Now  ye  are  the  body 
of  Christ,"  says  S.  Paul,*  "and  severally  members 
thereof.  And  God  hath  set  some  in  the  Church,  first 
apostles,  secondly  prophets,  thirdly  teachers,  then 
miracles,  then  gifts  of  healings,  helps,  governments, 
divers  kinds  of  tongues.  Are  all  apostles  ?  Are  all 
prophets  ?  Are  all  teachers  ?  Are  all  workers  of 
miracles?  Have  all  gifts  of  healing?  Do  all  speak 
with  tongues?  Do  all  interpret?"  S.  Paul  leaves  these 
questions  unanswered,  because  they  answer  themselves. 
The  very  force  of  his  argument  is  this — it  is  an  appeal 
to  everybody's  experience.  The  quick-witted,  factious 
Corinthians  could  not  tolerate  order  ;  they  could  barely 
tolerate  decency.  Women  were  to  be  as  free  in  their 
behaviour  as  men;  and  not  only  in  their  dress  to  defy 
the  ordinary  rules  of  decorum,  but  even  to  "speak  in 
the  churclies."  Each  member  of  the  Church  wanted 
to  be  exactly  what  every  other  Avas.  They  interrupted 
each  other  in  the  Church  assemblies.  And  S.  Paul 
reminds  them  that  this  kind  of  behaviour  was  absurd. 
The  Church  was  not  a  chaos :  it  was  intended  to  be  the 
realization  of  an  ideal  order.     It  was  the  truest  and 

*  I.  Corinthians  xii.  27-30.    It  is  impossible  to  read  this  wliole 
chapter  too  often  or  too  carefully. 


ABSOLUTION.  179 

noblest  body,  even  the  Body  of  Christ,  and,  therefore, 
was  the  most  perfectly  organized  of  all  bodies.  And  a 
perfect  body  includes  a  minute  "  differentiation  "  of  its 
separate  parts. 

The  power  of  "remitting  and  retaining"  sins,  then, 
even  though  given  to  the  whole  Church  as  Christ's 
Body,  as  commissioned  to  preserve  and  propagate  His 
revelation  and  to  execute  His  will,  must  certainly  be 
exercised — whether  by  His  direct  appointment  (as  I 
believe),  or  by  His  indirect  appointment  through  in- 
evitable "  evolution  " — by  special  individuals  set  apart 
for  that  purpose.  Moreover,  speaking  generally,  it 
must  be  exercised  by  these  only.  For  its  exercise 
depends  upon  those  gifts  of  the  Spirit  which,  now  as  in 
the  beginning,  are  given  "to  each  one  "  for  his  special 
work ;  and  upon  the  authority  both  of  Christ  and  of 
His  Church,  which  authority  is  not  entrusted  promis- 
cuously to  every  man,  woman  and  child  in  the  Christian 
society.  Those  who  believe  that  the  power  of  "remit- 
ting and  retaining  sins,"  whatever  that  power  may  be, 
belongs  to  the  whole  Church,  should  be  the  very  first 
to  maintain  that  no  private  individual  has  the  right  to 
exercise  it  without  an  authorized  delegation  of  that 
power  by  the  Church  itself,  or  by  its  recognized 
officers. 

In  fact,  we  all  admit  this  principle,  and  apply  it  in 
detail  to  practice,  in  every  instance  in  which  our 
judgment  is  not  deflected  by  prejudice  or  fear.  There 
are  a  few  persons — an  infinitesimal  fraction  of  the 
whole  mass  of  Christendom — who  set  the  very  principle 
at  defiance.  But  we  do  not  seriously  argue  with  such 
people:  we  regard  them  witli  wonder,  and  pity,  and 
even  amusement.     Nobody  would  seriously  argue  with 


180  ABSOLUTION. 

a  man  who  seemed  really  to  believe  that  he  could  see 
with  his  foot  or  walk  with  his  eye.  But  the  thing  to  be 
observed  is  that  all  people  of  this  odd  way  of  thinking 
do,  and  necessarily  must,  retire  from  the  Church ;  not 
from  the  Protestant  Episcopal,  or  the  Koman,  or  the 
Eastern  Church,  but  from  every  existing  or  any  possible 
Church.  Their  denial  of  this  principle — viz. :  that  a 
body  is  made  up  of  "members  in  particular" — is  the 
annihilation  of  a  Church,  the  repudiation  of  its  very 
idea.  They  may  retain  certain  parts  of  the  Christian 
creed — which,  however,  being  severed  from  the  rest, 
are  for  the  most  part  distorted  or  exaggerated  into 
falsehood.  They  may  be  *'  very  well-meaning  people." 
In  spite  of  the  enormous  conceit  and  portentous 
egotism  of  assuming  that  they  are  infallibly  right  in 
respect  of  opinions  and  practices  which  the  over- 
whelming majority  of  Christians  regard  as  little  short 
of  insanity,  and  which  were  never  heard  of  for  at 
least  seventeen  hundred  years,  they  may  have  a  kind  of 
misguided  humility.  But  they  cannot  possibly  consti- 
tute a  Church,  or  a  body,  or  a  society.  For  all  these 
terms  connote  rules,  organization,  officers,  definite 
modes  of  conducting  business,  a  clear  purpose,  and  an 
ascertained  belief.  They  are  no  more  a  Church  than 
is  an  evening  "reception."  If  in  our  dread  of  priest- 
craft, or  with  a  far  nobler  jealousy  for  the  honour  of  liim 
who  alone  can  truly,  originally,  independently  "  forgive 
sins  " — if,  for  these  or  any  other  reasons,  we  hesitate  to 
admit  that  "remitting  and  retaining"  sins,  authorita- 
tively and  officially,  has  been  entrusted  exclusively  to 
one  class  of  persons,  we  should  remember  that  the 
same  objection  is  equally  valid  not  only  against  the 
ordination  of  preachers  and  rulers,  but  against  the 


ABSOLUTION.  181 

supposed  rights  and  duties  and  capacities  of  tlie  whole 
CMirch  as  a  body.  If  Christ  be  the  only  Absolver — 
as,  in  the  primary  and  highest  sense,  He  undoubtedly 
is — He  is  also  the  only  Teacher  and  the  only  Kuler. 
If  it  be  a  usurpation  of  His  incommunicable  authority 
that  a  single  priest  should  absolve,  it  is  an  equal 
usurpation  if  a  single  doctor  teaches;  it  is  an  equal 
usurpation  if  we  put  our  stolen  authority  "in  com- 
mission," and  exercise  it,  not  by  one  person,  but  by  a 
committee,  or  a  synod,  or  an  OEcumenical  Council. 

Whatever,  then,  the  power  of  "  remitting  and  retain- 
ing "  sins  may  be,  it  is  a  power  which  may  well  be 
entrusted  —  which,  either  by  the  direct  or  indirect 
authority  of  Christ,  actually  was  entrusted — to  a  special 
class  of  persons  —  viz.:  the  Apostles.  And  as  the 
Church  was  to  last  forever,  it  was  to  be  handed  down 
by  the  Apostles  to  their  successors  or  their  delegates, 
or  those  who,  by  the  authority  of  the  Church,  should 
be  set  apart  for  the  exercise  of  that  power.  For  this 
succession  and  delegation  of  authority  was  simply 
necessary,  unless  the  Church  itself  were  to  die  with 
the  last  of  the  Apostles. 

It  seems  to  me,  then,  that  the  words  of  Christ,  in 
the  passage  we  are  considering,  were  addressed  to  a 
little  company  of  disciples  representing  the  whole 
Church  ;  but  especially,  and  to  a  certain  important 
extent  exclusively,  to  the  Apostles,  representing  the 
appointed  ministers  of  the  Church  to  whom  the 
necessary  power  and  jurisdiction  should  be  given 
through  all  time.  "  He  breathed  on  them,  and  saith 
unto  them.  Receive  ye  the  Holy  Ghost."  In  this 
manner  He  imparted  to  them  the  inward,  spiritual 
qualification  for  the  exercise  of  the   authority   with 


182  ABSOLUTION. 

which  He  was  immediately  about  to  invest  them. 
Evidently,  therefore,  the  "remitting"  or  "retaining" 
of  sins  would  require  some  special  spiritual  discern- 
ment. And  surely  this  implies  that  these  powers,  with 
the  corresponding  obligations,  were  not  simply  powers, 
delegated  by  the  Church,  of  removing  or  retaining 
merely  ecclesiastical  censures  and  penalties.  For  this 
purpose  a  knowledge  of  the  rules  of  penitential  disci- 
pline, satisfactory  evidence  that  an  appointed  penance 
had  been  duly  performed,  would  be  abundantly  suffi- 
cient. Our  Lord  seems  to  bestow  the  Holy  Spirit  on 
His  Apostles  in  order  that  they  may  be  able  to  see 
beneath  the  surface,  to  unmask  hypocrisy,  to  encourage 
a  genuine  but  fearful  repentance.  And,  by  a  parity 
of  reasoning,  we  may  perhaps  fairly  conclude  that  this 
particular  gift  was  not  the  mere  qualification  for  a 
public  ministry  or  preaching  of  the  Gospel,  or  for  the 
administration  of  Baptism  or  the  Holy  Eucharist. 
Preaching,  indeed,  requires  also  a  spiritual  discernment, 
but  not  necessarily  a  "  discernment  of  spirits."  AVe  may 
preach  the  Gospel  generally  without  knowing  to  whom 
we  are  preaching  it.  It  may  be  "  the  savour  of  death 
unto  death."  Our  Gospel  may  be  "hid."  But,  in  deal- 
ing with  separate  individuals  and  their  j)eculiar  spiritual 
necessities,  we  must  have  some  knowledge  of  them. 
The  Apostles  were  to  "preach  the  Gospel  to  every 
creature."  But  they  would  meet  with  separate  indi- 
viduals, crushed  with  the  intolerable  burden  of  sin, 
or  living  easy  lives  of  self-indulgence  or  vice,  pre- 
suming upon  a  divine  mercy  which  they  vainly 
dreamed  they  might  claim  without  repentance  or  faith 
or  love.  With  these  cases  separately  the  Apostles 
would  have  to  deal.     "  I  now  give  to  you,"  our  Lord 


ABSOLUTION.  183 

seems  to  say,  "that  Holy  Ghost  who  Avill  enable  you, 
in  every  such  case,  to  act  wisely  and  truly.  You  shall 
have  such  clear  insight,  such  entire  harmony  with  the 
will  and  truth  of  God,  that  you  may  always  act  with 
entire  confidence  that  your  acts  have  the  divine 
approval.  All  sorts  of  people  will  come  to  you  ;  but, 
endowed  as  I  have  endowed  you,  guided  and  governed 
by  My  Spirit,  ^whosesoever  sins  ye  forgive  they  are 
forgiven  unto  them  ;  luliosesoever  sins  ye  retain,  they  are 
retained.' "  I  shrink  from  what  may  be — but  surely 
not  in  my  intention — the  profanity  of  paraphrasing 
our  Lord's  words,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  they  must 
include  at  least  as  much  as  I  have  tried  to  express  in 
these  few  sentences. 

Now,  it  is  certain  that  there  does  exist  in  the  world, 
at  this  present  moment,  a  Christian  Church  which 
claims  to  be— and  historically  is — the  continuation  of 
that  very  Church  over  which  the  Apostles  presided. 
Its  ministers  are  believed  to  be — and  historically  are — 
the  successors  of  the  Apostles  and  of  those  whom  they 
delegated  and  ordained.  At  the  ordination  of  those  of 
them  who  are  entrusted  with  the  authority  to  "  remit " 
or  "  retain  "  sins,  the  very  words  of  our  Lord — "  Receive 
ye  the  Holy  Ghost " — are  addressed  to  them.  Without 
that  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost  they  can  have  no  spiritual 
qualifications  to  execute  the  powers  and  duties  of  the 
office  to  which  they  are  appointed.  If  that  gift  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  has  been,  since  the  death  of  S.  John, 
suspended,  tliere  is  no  longer  any  autJiorized  and  com- 
petent ministry  of  the  Church.  The  Church  expired 
when  S.  John  died,  and  the  promises  of  Christ  Himself 
are  conspicuously  falsified.  Our  Ordination  Service  is, 
on  that  hypothesis,  a  farce,  a  blasphemy,  an  absurdity. 


184  ABSOLUTION. 

Is  this  so,  or  is  it  not  ?    Nobody  can  possibly  pretend 
that  the  question  is  unimportant* 

And  the  question,  Does  a  j^riest  at  his  ordination 
"receive  the  Holy  Ghost"  for  his  special  "office  and 
work  "  ?  is  only  a  particular  case  of  the  very  much 
wider  question,  Does  anybody  "receive  the  Holy 
Ghost"  for  any  ^mrpose  whatever?  Does  anybody 
receive  the  Holy  Ghost  in  Baptism  or  in  Confirmation, 

*0f  course  I  am  aware  that  in  our  own  Ordinal — The  Form 
aiid  Manner  of  Ordering  Priests — there  is  an  alternative  form 
of  ordination  introduced  by  the  apparently  inoffensive  words 
"or  this.'"  This  alternative,  like  one  or  two  others  in  our 
Prayer  Book,  may  mean  everything  or  nothing.  For  instance, 
in  another  place,  the  "o?-  this"  may  mean  that  the  Nicene 
Creed  is  not  really  accepted  as  authoritative  or  necessary  by  our 
Church.  In  the  Ordinal  it  may  be  mere  chaff  to  catch  very 
young  birds,  on  the  hypothesis  that  the  alternative  form  means, 
in  words  adapted  to  unthinking  and  perverse  minds,  exactly 
ivhat  is  expressed  more  fully  in  the  other  form.  I  think, 
however,  that  it  is  intended  to  convey  a  different  meaning.  I 
interpret  it  thus:  "Take  thou  [though  I  cannot  give  thee  any 
reason  to  be  sure  of  the  aid  of  the  Holy  Ghost]  authority  to 
execute  the  office  [though  not  to  perform  the  special  '  work ']  of 
a  priest And  [though  thou  must  not  presume  to  sup- 
pose that '  whose  sins  ,  .  .  .  retained,' yet]  be  thou,"  .  .  .  .etc. 
I  do  not  know  that  a  single  Bishop  in  our  Church  ever  uses  this 
alternative— and,  I  very  confidently  believe,  utterly  delusive — 
form ;  and  I  know  that  very  many  of  the  Bishops  do  not.  If 
any  Bishop  of  our  Church  really  does  ordain  a  priest  by  that 
form,  and  with  the  meaning  I  have  suggested  for  it,  I  believe 
that  he  does  not  intend  to  do  what  the  Church,  for  many 
centuries,  has  intended  to  do  in  ordaining  priests  ;  and  I  do  not 
believe  that  liis  ordination  is  valid.  At  any  rate,  I  am  glad  to 
be  perfectly  certain  that  my  own  ordination  was  not  by  this 
alternative  and  ambiguous  form.  It  may  be  very  true  that  the 
shorter  form  may  be  in  harmony  with  ancient  precedents.     But 


ABSOLUTION.  185 

or  at  any  time  whatever  ?  We  are  constantly  affirming, 
directly  or  indirectly,  that  people  do  receive  the  Holy 
Ghost*  But,  of  course,  this  may  be — and  we  are  contin- 
ually being  told,  with  sarcastic  bitterness,  that  it  is — 
mere  verbiage,  a  sort  of  obsolete  formula,  even  a  con- 
scious and  degrading  hypocrisy.  On  the  other  hand, 
religion  itself — any  religion — assumes  some  direct  com- 
munion between  the  Divine  Spirit  and  the  spirit  of  man. 
Is  this  true  "in  general,"  and  false,  or  hopelessly  doubt- 
ful, in  every  particular  instance  ?  Is  it  true  "  in  the 
abstract"  (Avhatever  that  may  precisely  mean),  and 
false  "in  the  concrete"?  Surely,  even  "priestcraft" 
would  be  much  better  than  atheism ;  and  we  ought  to 
realize  that  if  there  be  any  intrinsic  presumption,  or 
absurdity,  or  impossibility,  in  saying  at  the  ordination 
of  a  priest,  "Receive  thou  the  Holy  Ghost,"  all p7-ayer 
is  absurd,  and  religion  is  a  dream.  No  doubt  these 
words  themselves  are  not  a  prayer;  but  they  are  much 
more  significant  than  if  they  were.  They  have  been 
preceded  by  many  prayers :  the  public  prayers  of  the 
whole  congregation  ;  the  solemn,  silent  prayers  of  each 
individual ;  the  Vejii,  Creator  Sjnritus  j  and  then  the 
Bishop  assumes  that  these  prayers  have  not  been  ejacula- 

it  is  one  thing  not  to  know,  and  another  thing  to  reject,  a  par- 
ticular formula.  There  were  thousands  of  orthodox  Christians 
before  the  Council  of  Nica3a  ;  but  it  would  surely  be  absurd  to 
call  a  man  "orthodox"  who  deliberately  rejected  the  Nicene 
Creed  to-day.  As  to  the  validity  of  an  ordination  by  a  Bishop 
not  intending  what  is  meant  by  "  Receive  thou  the  Holy  Ghost," 
and  "  whose  sins,"  etc.,  of  course  I  leave  it  to  learned  canonists 
and  casuists:  I  only  express  ray  own  private  opinion,  without 
for  a  moment  pretending  to  belong  to  either  of  those  classes. 

*See,  for  example,  the  Collect    for    Whitsunday,   and  tlie 
special  prayer  "  to  be  said  at  the  meetings  of  Convention." 


186  ABSOLUTION. 

tions  into  the  empty  air :  that  they  have  been  prompted 
by  God  Himself,  and  that  He  has  solemnly  pledged 
Himself  to  answer  them.  He  assiimes  that  they  are 
answered.  He  knows  that  no  human  being  can 
adequately  discharge  the  duties  of  the  Christian  min- 
istry without  the  real  and  continual  help  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  He  therefore  says,  in  effect :  "  We  have  asked, 
and  God  according  to  His  most  sure  promise  has  given ; 
do  not  depend  upon  yourself;  do  not  fear,  much  less 
despair,  in  all  your  trials  and  difficulties :  the  Holy 
Ghost  is  given  to  you ;  '  receive  the  Holy  Ghost  for 
the  office  and  work  of  a  priest.'  "  If  this  be  senseless, 
or  presumptuous,  or  superstitious,  then  all  private 
prayer,  all  the  prayers  of  the  Church,  the  ministry  of 
the  Cliurch,  the  Sacraments  of  the  Church,  the  Church 
itself,  seem  scarcely  better  than  a  mischievous  fraud. 
I  cannot  accept  this  alternative;  and,  apart  from  that 
awful  dilemma,  I  believe  that  every  priest  at  his  ordi- 
nation does  receive  the  needed  divine  help  as  really  as 
did  the  Apostles  when  Christ  "  breathed  on  them,  and 
said,  Eeceive  ye  the  Holy  Ghost." 

Nor  does  this  imply  any  infallibility  on  the  part  of 
every  or  any  priest.*  The  conduct  of  a  priest  is  a  prod- 
uct of  many  factors,  two  of  which  are  the  guidance  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  and  his  own  free  will.  It  is  only  too 
possible  that  there  should  be,  only  too  certain  that 
there  have  been,  wicked  priests,  who  have  set  at  naught 
the  promptings  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  followed  "the 

*  Protestants  habitually  forget  that  even  the  (supposed)  infal- 
libility of  the  Pope  does  not  belong  to  him  personally,  but 
officially.  It  is  rigorously  defined.  It  can  only  be  exercised  in 
a  particular  way  and  for  a  particular  purpose  ;  and,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  is  not  exercised  nearly  so  often  (I  believe)  as  once  in  a 
hundred  years. 


ABSOLUTION.  187 

devices  and  desires  of  their  own  hearts."  But  similar 
wilfulness  and  sin  are  to  be  found  among  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men ;  and  if  they  prove  anything  against 
that  special  divine  assistance  which  is  given  to  the 
priest  for  the  discharge  of  his  special  duties,  they 
prove  with  exactly  equal  force  that  no  divine  assist- 
ance is  granted  to  anybody  for  any  purpose  whatever. 
In  other  words,  they  prove  the  complete  uselessness 
of  prayer,  and  the  utter  untrustworthiness  or  mendacity 
of  every  promise  contained  in  Holy  Scripture. 

But  though  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost  by  no  means 
secures  infallibility,  it  does  produce,  at  least  in  every 
priest  who  heartily  believes  that  he  has  received  it,  a 
spirit  of  profound  humility,  habitual  caution,  a  deep 
sense  of  responsibility,  conscientious  study,  unflinching 
courage,  a  steadiness  of  purpose  and  a  well-balanced 
proportion  and  adjustment  of  efforts,  which  are  far  more 
valuable  than  mere  tact.  If  in  the  discharge  of  the 
duties  of  the  Christian  ministry,  whether  on  the 
"  prophetical "  or  the  "  sacerdotal "  side,  we  conspicu- 
ously fail,  then — on  the  supposition  that  we  were  left 
entirely  to  our  unaided  judgment  and  efforts — we  may 
feel  personally  humiliated.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  if 
we  conspicuously  succeed,  we  can  scarcely  avoid,  and 
perhaps  need  not  try  to  avoid,  that  proud  elation  which 
naturally  attends  the  triumphant  exercise  of  our  intel- 
lectual and  spiritual  powers.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the 
noblest  of  Christian  ministers,  even  in  those  religious 
bodies  which  attach  no  very  special  importance  to 
ordination,  and  which  even  emphatically  protest 
against  the  arrogance  and  the  presumption  (as  they 
conceive)  of  the  solemn  assurance  of  the  gift  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  in  our  own  Ordinal — even  these  ministers  habit- 


188  ABSOLUTION. 

nally  acknowledge  the  divine  help,  and  acknowledge  also 
their  entire  dependence  upon  it.  And  surely  it  seems 
idle  to  admit  incidentally  what,  when  expressed  in  plain 
terms,  we  deny.  We  cannot  possibly  express  too  plainly 
— and  especially  at  our  very  entrance  upon  a  sacred 
and  most  difficult  work — both  what  we  need  and  what 
we  may  most  confidently  expect  to  receive.  He  who 
has  it  fixed  in  his  mind  from  the  very  first  that  in 
every  one  of  his  ministerial  acts  he  must  be  guided  to 
the  utmost  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  will  not  "lord  it 
over  God's  heritage " ;  he  will  not  work  only  for 
popularity,  much  less  for  "  filthy  lucre  " ;  he  will  not 
make  a  pompous  display  of  his  own  personal  and 
showy  attainments ;  he  will  not  exhibit  his  cleverness 
by  startling  paradoxes  which  may  unsettle  the  faith  of 
God's  little  children ;  he  will  not  be  idle  and  slovenly 
in  his  teaching  and  his  preparation;  he  will  "watch 
for  souls  as  one  who  must  give  an  account."  When 
we  seek  our  own  glory;  when  we  are  tyrannical  or 
negligent ;  when  we  relax  our  efforts  for  the  recovering 
of  the  lost  sheep,  and  for  the  relief  of  souls  over- 
whelmed by  sin  and  shame,  it  is  because  we  forget, 
not  because  we  remember,  that  we  have  "received  the 
Holy  Ghost." 

In  the  words,  then,  that  we  are  considering,  our 
Blessed  Lord  bestows  upon  His  Apostles — and,  in 
them,  upon  all  the  ministers  of  the  Cliurch  who, 
"even  unto  the  end  of  the  world,"  should  be  entrusted- 
with  the  same  or  similar  authority  or  obligations — the 
Holy  Ghost,  in  order  that  they  may  possess  that 
divine  assistance  which  they  may,  indeed,  wilfully  dis- 
regard, but  which,  if  they  faithfully  avail  themselves 
of  it,  will  render  them  "sufficient"  for  their  arduous 


ABSOLUTION.  189 

work.  And  then  He  adds — reminding  them  what 
would  be  the  most  difficult  of  their  duties,  and  imply- 
ing that  even  for  their  discharge  the  Holy  Ghost 
would  "  enable  "  them — "  Whosesoever  sins  ye  forgive, 
they  are  forgiven  unto  them  ;  and  whosesoever  sins  ye 
retain,  they  are  retained.'^  For,  beyond  all  doubt — as 
every  clergyman  knows  from  his  own  constant  experi- 
ence—by far  the  most  difficult  of  the  duties  of  the 
Christian  minister  is  the  duty  of  ministering  separately 
to  separate  souls.  It  is  comparatively,  even  positively, 
easy  to  minister  to  a  whole  congregation,  because,  in 
ministering  to  them,  we  are  dealing  only  with  general 
truths  and  general  practical  principles.  And  it  is  easy 
to  arrive  at  absolute  certitude  about  general  truths  and 
general  principles.  If  nothing  more  were  necessary 
for  the  conduct  of  life,  no  science  of  "casuistry"  could 
have  come  into  existence;  and  (to  take  an  example 
from  our  Protestant  casuists)  the  Ductor  Duhitantiurn 
of  Bishop  Jeremy  Taylor  could  never  have  been 
written.  But  there  is  really  no  such  thing  as  life  in 
general,  or  conduct  in  general.  Each  one  of  us  has  to 
confront  at  some  particular  moment  some  particular 
alternative  of  action.  That  children  should  obey 
their  parents  is  a  general  principle  of  ethics;  that 
children  should  obey  their  parents  "  in  the  Lord  "  is  a 
general  principle  of  religion  and  of  the  Christian 
religion.  That  "  marriage  is  honourable  in  all "  is  a 
general  truth  both  of  religion  and  morals.  But  a 
young  man,  desiring  to  contract  a  perfectly  honourable 
marriage,  maybe  confronted  by  the  fact  that,  unless  he 
represses  and  extinguishes  that  desire,  he  must  leave 
his  sick  or  aged  parents  lonely  and  miserable,  and 
perhaps  deprived  of  that  pecuniary  support  which 


190  ABSOLUTION. 

hitherto  he  has  been  able  and  willing  to  provide. 
Shall  he  marry  or  not?  Would  his  marrying  be  right 
or  wrong  ?  A  young  man  may  feel  very  confident  of 
an  inward  "call"  to  the  work  of  the  ministry  among 
distant  savages ;  he  may  feel  reasonably  sure  of  obtain- 
ing the  confirmatory  ecclesiastical  sanction.  But  if  he 
goes  as  a  missionary  to  the  cannibals  at  the  other  side 
of  the  world,  he  will  break  his  mother's  heart.  Ought 
lie  to  go  ?  In  some  impulse  of  reckless  passion  or 
lust  a  young  man  has  committed  some  grievous  sin. 
It  involves  some  other  person  besides  himself.  Either  of 
these  persons  enters  into  new  relations;  becomes  over- 
Avhelmed  with  remorse;  finds  perfect  reparation  and 
satisfaction  utterly  impossible ;  cannot  even  attempt  it 
without  inflicting  irreparable  disgrace  and  misery  upon 
wholly  innocent  people;  is  neverthess  consumed  by  a 
longing  to  do  something ;  at  least  to  acknowledge  the 
past  wrong.  Is  that  person  justified,  for  the  sake  of 
personal  relief  of  conscience,  in  making  such  an 
acknowledgment  ?  Every  clergyman  who,  especially 
in  a  city  parish,  has  had  "  cure  of  souls  "  for  twenty  or 
thirty  years,  will  be  able,  from  his  own  personal  knowl- 
edge, to  fill  in  the  details  of  such  a  case  as  this  last  in 
only  too  many  ways.  Now,  these  questions  cannot  be 
answered  by  repeating,  scores  of  times  over,  some 
general  principle.  The  questions  arise  out  of  an 
a])parent  conflict  of  general  principles.  1'hey  are 
"cases  of  conscience."  It  may  be  affirmed  that,  any- 
how, each  individual  must  settle  them  for  himself. 
But,  first,  the  man  Avho  tries  to  settle  such  questions 
for  himself  will  generally  find  that  his  judgment  is 
already  hopelessly  biased,  on  one  side  or  the  other,  by 
an  overmastering  passion  or  a  paralyzing  dread.     And, 


ABSOLUTION.  191 

second,  Almighty  God,  not  in  religion  only,  but  in  the 
whole  course  of  nature  and  intercourse  of  society,  has 
mercifully  provided  that  we  shall  obtain  help  and 
relief  through  the  mediation  of  others. 

Now,  if  the  duties  of  a  minister  of  Christ  do  not 
include  dealing  with  such  cases  as  these,  it  is  hard  to 
say  what  they  do  include.  For  these  are  the  only  cases 
of  real  difficulty.  A  priest  may  well  say,  "  How  can  I 
deal  with  them  ?  "  And  the  answer  is,  "  Eeceive  thou 
the  Holy  Ghost  for  the  office  and  work  of  a  priest." 
A  minister  of  Christ,  dealing  with  such  cases  in  simple 
honesty  and  dependence  upon  divine  assistance,  free 
from  all  personal  bias,  full  at  once  of  justice  and 
mercy,  jealous  for  the  righteousness  of  God  and  long- 
ing for  the  salvation  of  the  sinner,  is  likely  to  decide 
at  least  as  impartially  and  accurately  as  the  individual 
personally  concerned.  At  any  rate,  if  such  a  case  be 
presented  to  him,  he  is  hound  to  decide.  He  does  not 
simply  offer  advice  or  suggestions  :  he  delivers  &>  judg- 
ment after  hearing  such  evidence  as  is  presented  to  him. 
The  evidence  may  be  incomplete,  his  own  judgment 
may  sometimes — though,  in  practice,  very  seldom — be 
mistaken.  But  this  does  not  release  him  from  his 
duty,  nor  impair  the  general  utility  of  his  ministrations. 
The  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  is  a  true 
court,  delivers  valid  judgments,  is  absolutely  necessary 
to  the  just  government  of  the  nation,  though  some  of 
its  decisions  may,  at  this  very  moment,  be  held  to  be 
mistaken  by  the  very  ablest  lawyers  in  America,  and 
would  very  possibly  be  reversed  if  the  occasion  pre- 
sented itself  for  a  reconsideration  and  a  more  com- 
plete argument. 

Such  cases,  then,  as  I  am  considering  will  very  fre- 


192  ABSOLUTION. 

quently  be  brought  to  the  consideration  and  decision 
of  Christ's  ministers — and  they  must  be  dealt  with  as 
they  arise.  On  the  other  hand,  the  ministers  of  Christ 
may  sometimes  be  bound  to  seek  them  out,  or  to  deal 
with  them  when  presented  by  other  parties  than 
those  personally  concerned.  But  it  must  be  observed 
that  the  words  of  our  Lord  are  not  addressed  to  the 
"  laity,"  but  to  the  "  clergy."  They  lay  upon  His 
ministers  the  duty  of  dealing  with  troubled  con- 
sciences, but  they  do  not — at  least  directly,  and  taken 
alone — require  those  whose  consciences  are  not  troubled, 
nor  even  those  whose  consciences  are  troubled,  to  avail 
themselves  of  that  particular  kind  of  assistance.  Nor 
is  tliere  a  word  said  about  confession — much  less  about 
a  minute  confession  of  all  mortal  sins,  however  remotely 
they  may  be  connected  with  the  particular  distress 
which  burdens  the  soul.  It  is  neither  affirmed  nor 
implied  that  there  is  no  forgiveness  of  sins  except  such 
as  is  officially  declared  by  the  minister  of  Christ.  The 
general  commission  to  the  Apostles  was,  "  Go  ye  into 
all  the  world  and  iweacli  the  Gospel  to  every  creature." 
It  is  chiefly  when  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel,  on  the 
side  both  of  law  and  of  promise,  produces  a  torment  of 
conscience  which  compels  the  sufferer  to  have  recourse 
for  his  own  personal  relief  to  the  minister  of  Christ, 
that  the  duty  of  dealing  with  his  separate  case  arises; 
and  for  the  discharge  of  that  very  difficult  duty  Christ 
Himself  has  promised  the  assistance  of  the  Holy  Ghost.* 

*  Undoubtedly  the  Church  of  Rome  maintains  tlie  "  general  " 
necessity — that  is  to  say,  the  necessity  in  all  ordinary  cases — of 
"the  Sacrament  of  Penance"  for  the  forgiveness  of  post- 
baptismal  sins.  But  even  she  does  not  affirm  that  there  is  no 
conceivable  case  in  which  forgiveness  may  be  certainly  received 


ABSOLUTION.  193 

It  might  seem,  indeed,  that  the  Gospel  is  so  plain 
that  nobody  can  possibly  misunderstand  it.  It  would 
seem  to  be  beyond  dispute  that  God  requires  from 

without  that  "Sacrament."     Thus  the  writer  of  the  article 
on  "The  Sacrament  of  Penance"  in  the  Catholic  Dictionary 


"  It  is  true  that  perfect  soitow  for  sin  which  lias  offended  so 
good  a  God,  at  once  and  without  the  addition  of  any  external 
rite  blots  out  the  stain  and  restores  the  peace  and  love  of  God 
in  the  soul.  '  There  is  no  condemnation  to  those  who  are  in 
Christ  Jesus,  who  walk  not  after  the  flesh,  but  after  the  spirit.' 
But  this  perfect  sorrow  involves  in  a  well-instructed  Catholic 
the  intention  of  fulfilling  Christ's  precept  and  receiving  the 
Sacrament  of  Penance  when  opportunity  occurs.  This  implicit 
desire  of  confession  and  absolution  may  exist  in  many  Protest- 
ants who  reject  the  Catholic  doctrine  on  this  point.  They 
desire  the  Sacrament  of  Penance  in  this  sufficient  sense,  that 
they  earnestly  wish  to  fulfil  Christ's  law  so  far  as  they  can  learn 
what  it  is.  In  this  sense  the  Sacrament  is  necessary  for  the 
salvation  of  those  who  have  fallen  into  mortal  sin  after  baptism. 
They  must  receive  it  actually  or  by  desire,  this  desire  being 
either  explicit  or  implicit.  This  point  is  of  capital  importance 
for  the  apprehension  of  Catholic  doctrine.  We  in  no  way  deny 
that  God  is  ready  to  forgive  the  sins  of  non-Catholics  who  are 
in  good  faith  and  who  turn  to  Him  with  loving  sorrow." 

And  this  is  but  an  expansion  of  the  authoritative  statement 
of  the  Council  of  Trent — or  at  least  seems  to  be  perfectly  con- 
sistent with  it.  See  Canones  et  Decreta  Cone.  Trident.,  Sess. 
XIV,  c.  iv. :  "  Docet  (Synodus)  praeterea,  etsi  contritlonem 
hanc  aliquando  caritate  perfectam  esse  contingat,  hominemque 
Deo  reconciliare,  priusquam  hoc  Sacramentum  actu  suscipiatur, 
ipsam  nihilominus  reconciliationem  ipsi  contritioni  sine  sacra- 
menti  voto,  quod  in  ilia  includitur,  non  esse  adscribendam." 
The  "quod  in  ilia  includitur"  is  always  to  be  understood. 
Undoubtedly  every  truly  contrite  sinner  wishes  to  do  God's  will 
and  submit  to  God's  conditions,  and  his  ignorance  will  not  be 
imputed  to  him  for  sin.  His  tvish  will  include  even  what  he 
does  not  know  to  be  generally  necessary. 


194  ABSOLUTION. 

everybody  who  seeks  forgiveness,  repentance  and  faith 
and  obedience,  and  a  determination  to  avoid  for  the 
future  both  sin  and  the  occasions  of  sin,  and  also  "fruits 
meet  for  repentance."  All  this  is  as  plain  as  words 
can  make  it.  But  we  ought  to  know,  from  our  own 
sad  experience  more  even  than  from  our  observation  of 
others,  that  "the  heart  is  deceitful  above  all  things 
and  desperately  wicked."  We  may  only  too  easily 
deceive  ourselves;  unfortunately,  without  deceiving 
ourselves,  we  may  be  deliberate  hypocrites,  wilfully 
deceiving  others.  Hence,  also,  arises  the  necessity  of 
that  remitting  or  retaining  of  sins  which  Christ 
entrusted  to  His  Apostles  and  priests.  Let  us  consider 
an  actual  example  of  the  exercise  of  the  power  of  "  re- 
taining "  sins  entrusted  to  the  Apostles  of  Christ.  In 
the  first  flush  of  Christian  enthusiasm  the  believers  in 
Jerusalem  "  were  together,  and  had  all  things  com- 
mon ;  and  they  sold  their  possessions  and  goods,  and 
parted  them  to  all,  according  as  any  man  had  need."* 
Especially  Barnabas,  "  having  a  field,  sold  it,  and 
brought  the  money  and  laid  it  at  the  Apostles'  feet."t 
Absurd,  and  ultimately  disastrous,  as  this  conduct  was 
— for  very  shortly  the  Jerusalem  Church  was  over- 
whelmed in  the  lowest  depths  of  utter  destitution,  and 
had  to  be  supported  by  the  contributions  of  the  whole 
Christian  world — it  was,  as  an  expression  of  Christian 
charity  and  perfectly  unselfish  sincerity,  singularly 
beautiful.  But  its  whole  value,  such  as  it  was,  de- 
pended upon  its  perfect  sincerity.  Barnabas,  however, 
of  course  without  intending  it,  set  what  we  may  call  a 
"fashion  "  of  a  peculiar  kind  of  Christian  generosity; 
and  the  generosity  which  is  a  "fashion"  very  easily 

*Acts  ii.  44-45  ;  iv.  32-35.  ilbid.  36-37. 


ABSOLUTION.  195 

becomes  morally  worthless,  and  lends  itself  readily  to 
deceit,  and  is  in  all  sorts  of  indirect  ways  demoralizing. 
We  all  know  the  story  of  Ananias  and  Sapphira. 
These  nnhappy  people  must  needs  be  "in  the  fashion." 
They  also  must  "sell  a  possession,"  and  gain  the  cor- 
responding applause  and  credit  which  all  really  good 
actions  are  sure  to  secure.  But  why  not  get  credit  for 
generosity  as  cheaply  as  possible  ?  Who  could  know 
how  much  they  had  received  for  the  lands  they  sold  ? 
So  they  brought  to  the  Apostles  "a  part  of  the  price." 
Meanwhile,  they  probably  believed  that  they  were 
genuine,  and  even  peculiarly  liberal.  Christians,  and 
that  their  sins  were  forgiven.  So  it  was  necessary  that 
they  should  be  completely  and  terribly  undeceived. 
"  Peter  said,  Ananias,  why  hath  Satan  filled  thy  heart 

to  lie  to  the  Holy  Ghost  ? And  Ananias  hearing 

these  Avords  fell  down  and  gave  up  the  ghost." 
Surely  this  is  a  complete  illustration  of  the  meaning 
of  Christ's  words :  "  Whosesoever  sins  ye  shall  retain, 
they  are  retained."  No  doubt  it  may  be  urged  that 
some  of  the  incidents  of  this  fearful  case  are  represented 
as  supernatural.  But,  in  whatever  way  S.  Peter  obtained 
his  information,  and  whatever  special  punishment 
Almighty  God  may  have  thought  fit  to  inflict,  S.  Peter, 
without  a  moment's  hesitation,  passed  judgment  upon 
Ananias— declared  that  he  was  not  forgiven,  laid  bare 
his  hypocrisy,  and  delivered  him  over  to  the  divine 
discipline.  In  a  similar  manner,  S.  Paul  passes  judg- 
ment on  the  gross  offender  in  the  Corinthian  Church— 
a  judgment  concerning  his  sin  ;  and  he  "  retains  "  that 
sin.  But  at  a  later  period,  when  the  Apostolic  disci- 
pline had  wrought  its  blessed  work,  S.  Paul  "  forgives" 
this  very  same  person,  "  in  the  Person  of  Christ."    No 


196  ABSOLUTION. 

doubt  the  Apostles  possessed  certain  spiritual  gifts 
"vvliich  were  peculiar  to  themselves;  but  if  that  gift  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  which  qualifies  the  minister  of  Clirist 
to  remit  or  retain  sins  was  peculiar  to  the  Apostles, 
then  all  Church  discipline,  since  the  death  of  the 
Apostles,  is  unjust  and  absurd.  All  just  punishment 
must  be  the  result  of  a  knoioledge  of  the  sin. 

In  the  enormous  majority  of  cases  the  ministers  of 
Christ  remit  or  retain  sins  by  the  simple  preaching  of 
the  Gospel — including,  as  it  does,  both  the  law  and  the 
promises  of  Christ.  Where  the  Bible  is  read  and  the 
Gospel  faithfully  preached,  scarcely  anybody  can  be  in 
any  reasonable  doubt  whether  or  not  his  sins  are  for- 
given. A  man  who  should  come  to  a  priest  and  say, 
"  I  stole  fifty  dollars  last  week,  but  I  am  not  sorry ;  I 
have  the  money  now,  but  I  do  not  intend  to  repay  it ; 
will  you  remit  my  sin  and  grant  me  absolution  ?"  would 
be  either  a  hopeless  lunatic  or  an  impudent  ruffian. 
And,  on  the  other  hand,  what  troubled  sinner  can 
listen  to  the  sweet  consolations  of  Christ  without  peace 
and  rest  ?  He  knows  that  he  hates  and  loathes  his  sin ; 
that  he  is  inwardly  determined,  by  God's  help,  utterly 
to  forsake  it ;  that  he  is  prepared  to  the  utmost  of  his 
power  to  undo  the  wrong  he  has  done.  He  believes 
God's  promise,  he  puts  his  "  whole  trust  and  confidence 
in  God's  mercy  "  through  Jesus  Christ.  What  should 
prevent  his  entering  into  the  perfect  peace  of  an 
assured  forgiveness  ?  In  his  case  the  general  truths  and 
principles  of  the  Gospel  are  capable  of  easy  and  imme- 
diate application :  he  applies  them  and  is  at  rest. 

But  there  are  three  classes  of  persons  who  know  the 
inside  of  life  as  no  others  do— lawyers,  physicians,  and 
priests.     They  know  how  thin  is  the  crust  upon  which 


ABSOLUTION.  197 

multitudes  of  people,  even  "  in  good  society,"  are 
walking,  and  beneath  Avhich  are  the  raging  fires  of 
bottomless  perdition.  They  all  know  secrets  which, 
if  they  were  so  incredibly  and  fiendishly  base  as  to 
reveal  them,  might  blast  the  most  solid  reputations  and 
overwhelm  multitudes  of  innocent  people  in  hopeless 
ruin.  They  also  know  how  tight  and  intricate  are  the 
knots  by  which  those  who  have  done  wrong  are  bound 
— knots  that  no  mere  repentance,  however  sincere,  can 
possibly  untie.  These  unhappy  evil-doers  are  the 
people  to  Avhom  the  Gospel,  as  ordinarily  preached, 
brings  no  relief.  They  perfectly  understand  the 
general  principles ;  their  difficulties  are  "  cases  of  con- 
science" where  principles  conflict.  Pardon  must  be 
preceded  by  penitence ;  by  satisfaction,  so  far  as  is  pos- 
sible; by  removing  from  the  occasions  of  sin.  But 
the  peculiarity  of  their  case  is  that  they  cannot  make 
satisfaction  except  at  the  cost  of  innocent  people ;  and 
they  cannot  remove  from  the  occasions  of  sin  without 
revealing  or  suggesting  secrets  which  would  wreck  the 
happiness  of  pure  and  blameless  lives.  Far  short  of 
these  extreme  cases  are  the  cases  of  those  who  are  just 
beginning  to  be  entangled  in  the  web  of  sin.  They 
feel  themselves  inwardly  disgraced  and  disqualified  for 
Christian  fellowship.  They  dare  not  come  to  the  Holy 
Communion.  They  feel,  "  If  the  rector  knew  what  I  am 
he  would  never  receive  me ;  if  the  other  members  of  the 
church  knew  what  I  am  they  would  shrink  from  con- 
tact with  me.  I  must  somehow  make  a  clean  breast  of 
it."  It  may  be  said  that  the  general  preaching  of  the 
Gospel  ought  to  be  enough  for  them,  and  perhaps  it 
really  ought,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  not.  And 
the  question  arises.  Has  the  minister  of  Christ,  the 


198  ABSOLUTION. 

man  who,  at  his  ordination,  was  assured  that  he  was 
endowed  with  the  Holy  Ghost  for  the  very  purpose  of 
dealing  with  such  cases  as  these,  any  help  for  him? 
If  he  has  no  help  for  him  in  the  pulpit,  has  he  no 
help  for  him  at  all?  For  my  own  part,  I  believe  that 
this  question  answers  itself.  I  think  that  such  a 
person  should  have  the  opportunity  of  coming  to  his 
clergyman,  of  revealing  to  him  whatever  he  chooses  to 
reveal,  and  of  obtaining  a  clear  and  judicial  answer  to 
this  question,  "Are  my  sins  forgiven,  or  are  they  not? 
You  preach  a  Gospel  to  mankind  in  genei'al :  have  you 
any  Gospel /or  me  f 

It  has  not  unfrequently  been  proposed,  and  some- 
times even  in  the  serious  form  of  deliberate  resolutions 
in  Diocesan  or  General  Conventions,  that  the  clergy 
should  be  peremptorily  forbidden  to  receive  any  such 
confessions,  and  to  administer  to  those  who  offer  them 
the  consolation  of  absolution.  I  am  free  to  confess 
that,  in  my  judgment,  any  such  legislation  would  imply 
a  direct  and  explicit  contradiction  of  our  Saviour's 
own  commands,  and  would  render  it  absolutely  neces- 
sary for  everybody  who  believes  our  Lord's  words 
to  renounce  a  ministry  which  had  been  so  fatally 
attenuated.  In  fact,  I  know  of  no  religious  sect  in 
which  such  legislation  would  be  possible,  or  in  which 
it  could  be  executed.  At  any  cost  to  ourselves,  we 
Christian  priests  are  bound  to  receive  all  who  come  to 
us,  to  hear  whatever  concerning  iheir  own  sins  and 
troubles  they  think  fit  to  reveal  to  us,  and  to  admin- 
ister to  them  such  advice,  or  reproof,  or  comfort,  as  their 
case  may  require;  in  a  word,  also,  depending  upon  the 
guidance  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  to  "  remit "  or  "retain  " 
their  sins. 


ABSOLUTION.  199 

But  what  is  it  that  we  do,  or  believe  that  we  do,  or 
intend  to  do,  in  granting  or  refusing  absolution  ?  The 
penitent  comes  to  us  for  this  very  reason — that  he  is 
distracted  by  "  ifs  "  and  "  buts  "  and  "  perhapses." 
Are  we  to  say  to  him  (of  course  excluding  the  case  of 
deliberate  lying,  which  the  pretended  penitent  would 
know  rendered  the  whole  matter  abortive  and  sacri- 
legious), "//"you  are  not  quite  mistaken  about  your  past 
conduct  and  your  present  feelings,  jjerhajys  I  may  venture 
to  say  that  God  will  forgive  your  sins ;  but  I  cannot 
be  any  more  sure  than  you  are  yourself;  and  7JerA«;js 
it  will  not  be  unsafe  for  you,  in  a  case  of  doubt,  to  rely 
as  much  on  the  mercy  as  on  the  justice  of  Almighty 
God"  ?  I  hope  it  is  not  irreverent  to  say  that  it  seems 
to  me  scarcely  necessary  that  we  should  "  receive  the 
Holy  Ghost"  to  enable  us  to  perform  so  excessively 
jejune  a  service.  This  would  be  indeed  giving  stones 
for  bread  and  scorpions  for  fish.  Our  precise  duty  is 
to  do  that  for  a  man  which  his  personal  bias,  or  his 
fear,  or  his  intense  desire,  incapacitates  him  from  doing 
for  himself.  We  must,  relying  upon  the  aid  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  upon  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  upon  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  Gospel  contained  in  the  Creeds  and  the 
Canons  and  Decrees  of  the  Church — relying  upon 
these,  with  prayer  and  love  and  justice,  we  must 
judge  the  man.  We  must  say  to  him,  in  effect,  "  You 
come  to  me  baffled  and  perplexed;  you  cannot  be 
sure  that  you  are  not  deceiving  yourself;  yoti  have 
told  me  enough  of  your  case  to  enable  me  to  see 
it  with  impartial  eyes.  Acting  as  God's  minister,  I 
judge  that,  if  you  be  not  wilfully  deceiving  me,  jou 
are  really  contrite,  and  'I  absolve  you  from  all  your 
sins,  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of 
the  Holy  Ghost.'" 


200  ABSOLUTION. 

Have  we  then  usurped  the  authority  of  the  Ahnighty  ? 
Have  we  presumed,  by  our  own  authority,  to  remit  sins 
which  God  retains,  or  retain  sins  which  God  remits? 
Everybody  knows  that  no  Church  in  Christendom,  and 
no  individual  priest,  ever  makes  pretensions  so  blas- 
phemous. But  we  have  decided  for  a  perplexed  con- 
science what  it  was  unable  to  decide  for  itself.  We 
have  actually  hroiiglit  to  a  terrified  sinner  that  forgive- 
ness of  God  which  he  did  not  venture  to  claim  for 
himself,  and  for  want  of  which  he  was  dying.  We 
have  actually  opened  the  prison-door  which  God  had 
unlocked  ;  M'e  have  taken  the  prisoner  by  the  hand  and 
led  him  out.  We  are  only — is  not  that  more  than 
enough  ? — "  the  ministers  of  Christ,  and  stewards  of 
the  mysteries  of  God."  But  we  are  His  ministers 
and  stewards  ;  and,  in  absolving  a  penitent  sinner,  we 
have  done  the  work  of  the  ministry  and  dispensed  the 
divine  mysteries. 

Note. — In  this  sermon  I  have  spoken  of  the  ministers  of 
Christ  as  priests.  I  am  very  well  aware  that  there  are  many 
clergymen  who  seem  to  think  that  there  is  some  special  advan- 
tage or  merit  in  describing  themselves  simply  as  j^reshyters,  and 
I  am  always  very  much  puzzled  to  know,  or  even  guess,  where 
the  advantage  or  merit  is  to  be  found.  We  wei-e  all  ordained  to 
a  particular  office  by  means  of  a  form  which  is  called  The 
Form  and  Manner  of  Ordering  Priests.  For  my  part  1  was 
never  ' '  ordered ' '  a  presbyter,  unless  that  word  is  an  exact 
synonym  for  the  word  priest.  If  it  be,  it  would  seem  to  me 
an  affectation,  or  an  extreme  eccentricity,  to  call  myself  only  a 
presbytsr ;  i£  it  be  not,  it  would  seem  to  me  hypocrisy  to  have 
been  "  ordered  a  priest  "  at  all  with  the  belief  that  there  cannot 
be  a  priest  in  the  Christian  Church.  But  it  is  said  that  a  priest 
implies  a  sacrifice,  and  that  there  is  no  sacrifice  in  the  Christian 
Church ;  and  therefore  that  there  are  in  the  Christian  Church 
no  priests  ;  and  further — must  I  not  add? — that  our  Ordinal  is, 


ABSOLUTION.  201 

at  the  very  least,  seriously  misleading.  But  have  not  the  priests 
of  tlie  Christian  Church  a  sacrifice— or  many  sacrifices — to  offer? 
I  think  sacrifices  may  be  divided  into  three  classes : 

1.  Those  which  are  real,  and  independently  and  intrinsically 
sufficient. 

2.  Tliose  which  are  real,  but  sufficient  only  as  anticipatory 
or  commemorative,  or  otherwise  expressly  connected  with,  some 
other  and  perfect  sacrifice. 

3.  Those  which  are  neither  real  nor  independently  sufficient, 
but  called  sacrifices  by  metaphor  or  analogy. 

A  sacrifice  is  real  when  it  consists  of  something  offered  to 
Almighty  God  wholly  different  from,  and  independent  of,  the 
moods  of  our  own  minds.  Thus  the  Jewish  sacrifices  were  real : 
they  consisted  of  living  animals  slain  and  presented  to  God. 
The  Eucharist,  as  a  sacrifice,  is  real,  because  it  consists  of 
*'  these  Thy  lioly  gifts  [the  elements  of  the  Eucharist]  which  we 
now  offer  unto  Thee."  Prayer  and  praise  are  not,  as  sacrifices, 
real,  because  they  are  only  moods  of  our  own  minds  or  verbal 
expressions  of  those  moods. 

A  sacrifice  is  intriiLsically  and  independently  sufficient  when, 
in  itself,  it  perfectly  satisfies  Almighty  God.  The  only  sacrifice 
of  this  kind  is  the  sacrifice  of  Christ.  This  sacrifice  is  real, 
because  it  was  the  offering  to  God  of  Christ's  Body  ("a  Body 
hast  Thou  prepared  for  me  ")  with  all  which  that  implies.  But 
it  is  also  unique  in  this  respect — that  the  sacrifice  is  also  (viewed 
from  a  different  side)  the  pi'iest. 

The  Jewish  sacrifices  were  real,  but  not  independently  suffi- 
cient. To  express  the  matter  briefly,  they  were  anticipatory  of 
the  sacrifice  of  Christ. 

The  Eucharistic  Sacrifice  is  real,  but  not  independently  suf- 
ficient. It  is  a  commemoration  of  a  sacrifice  already  cfimplete, 
as  the  Jewish  sacrifices  were  anticipatory  of  the  same  sacrifice. 

Prayers  and  praises  are  called  sacrifices  by  a  metaphor  or  an 
analogy. 

If  it  be  inconsistent  with  the  sole  perfection  and  sufficiency 
of  Christ's  sacrifice  to  regard  the  Eucliarist  (on  one  side)  as  a 
sacrifice,  it  was  equally  inconsistent  with  that  sole  perfection  to 
call  the  slain  bullocks  offered  on  Jewish  altai'S  sacrifices. 


202  ABSOLUTION. 

The  whole  discussion  on  this  matter  is  very  largely  a  barren 
logomachy.  Bnt  the  objections  generally  urged  against  regard- 
ing the  Eucharist  as  in  any  sense  a  sacrifice  imply,  so  far  as  they 
have  any  validity  at  all,  not  only  the  reality,  but  the  imlepende'iU 
sufficiency,  of  the  Jewish  sacrifices. 

It  may  be  well  to  note  a  few  points  upon  which  both  the 
Roman  Church  and  our  own,  and  all  schools  and  parties  within 
our  own,  are  agreed.  The  only  sacrifice  perfectly  sufficient  and 
satisfactory  to  God  is  the  sacrifice  of  Christ.  That  sacrifice 
was  not  offered  before  the  Incarnation  and  Crucifixion.  It  has 
never  been  repeated,  and  never  will  be.  It  is  permanently 
efficacious ;  and  on  its  efficacy  depends  the  value  of  all  religious 
services,  both  heretofore  among  the  Jews  and  now  among 
Christians. 

Similarly  as  to  Absolution.  Nobody  believes  that  any 
priest  can  "remit"  or  "retain"  sins  by  his  own  authority. 
Nobody  believes  that  a  priest's  absolution  avails  for  the  for- 
giveness of  one  who  is  not  really  contrite,  nor  that  he  can 
"  retain  "  the  sins  of  one  who  really  is.  It  is  perfectly  notorious 
that  we  are  all  agreed  on  these  points.  The  differences  of 
opinion  on  these  subjects  that  are  still  possible  and  actually 
exist  are  by  no  means  unimportant,  but  they  do  not  involve  the 
slightest  rtisparagement  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  or  any  claim 
to  possess  the  incommunicable  powers  and  attributes  of  Almighty 
God,  Whether  the  Eucharist  can,  in  any  proper  sense,  be 
called  a  sacrifice,  is  too  wide  a  question  to  be  discussed  in  a 
note.  There  is,  however,  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  it  is  so 
called  in  the  most  ancient  extant  Liturgies,  which  manifestly 
imply  a  common  source  of  much  higher  antiquity  ;  and  also  by 
those  early  Fathers  who  affirmed  with  unshaiien  constancy  the 
absolute  completeness  of  the  One  Sacrifice  of  Christ  "finished  " 
on  the  Cross.  It  seems  I'ather  absurd  to  repudiate  as  a  heresy  a 
belief  which  was  held  by  all  those  Fathers  who  are  regarded  as 
the  chief  witnesses  of  what  orthodoxy  is. 

Many  long  and  elaborate  expositions  have  been  written  of  our 
Saviour's  words,  which  are  the  text  of  this  sermon,  which  throw 
far  less  light  upon  their  meaning  than  the  simple  verses  by 
J.  H.  (now  Cardinal)  Newman.  They  were  written  "off  Cape 
S.  Vincent,  December  14,  1832." 


ABSOLUTION. 


ABSOLUTION. 


203 


0  Father,  list  a  sinner's  call  ! 

Fain  would  I  hide  from  man  my  fall  — 
But  I  must  speak,  or  faint — 

1  cannot  wear  guilt's  silent  thrall  ; 

Cleanse  me,  kind  Saint ! 

"  Sinner  ne'er  blunted  yet  sin's  goad  : 
Speed  thee,  my  son,  a  safer  road. 

And  sue  His  pardoning  smile 
Who  walked  woe's  depths,  bearing  man's  load 
Of  guilt  the  while." 

Yet  raise  a  mitigating  hand, 
And  minister  some  potion  bland, 

Some  present  fever-stay ! 
Lest  one  for  whom  His  work  was  plann'd 

Die  from  dismay. 

' '  Look  not  to  me— no  grace  is  mine  ; 
But  I  can  lift  the  mercy-sign. 

This  would'st  thou  ?    Let  it  be  ! 
Kneel  down,  and  take  the  word  divine, 
Absolvo  te." 

On  the  subject  considered  in  the  note  on  p.  184, 1  am  enabled, 
by  the  kind  permission  of  the  Rev.  Hall  Harrison,  M.  A.,  the 
biographer  of  Bishop  Kerfoot,  to  add  to  this  note  the  following 
Taluable  letter  from  that  Bishop  to  the  Rev.  W.  R.  Churton, 
of  Cambridge,  England.  I  need  not  say  that  the  Bishop's 
opinion  is  deserving  of  far  more  consideration  than  any  opinion 
of  mine  on  this  subject.  I  entirely  believe  that  the  meaning  of 
the  Ordination  service  as  a  ivJwle  would  complement— if  it  were 
admitted,  or  even  not  excluded— the  insufficiency  (as  I  conceive 
it)  of  the  Alternative  form  of  actual  Ordination.  But  that  fact 
only  confirms,  I  think,  my  position  that  the  deliberate  omission 
of  the  words  "  Receive  ye  the  Holy  Ghost,"  and  "  Whosesoever 
sins,"  etc.,  stultifies  the  service  as  a  whole.  The  words  must 
be  omitted,  if  at  all,  foi-  soine  reason.     I  can  imagine  no  other 


204  ABSOLUTION. 

reason  than  this :  the  person  who  omits  those  words  does  not 
believe  them  to  be  certainly  true.  Moreover,  the  actual  laying 
on  of  hands,  with  the  appropriate  words,  is  surely  of  the  very 
essence  of  Ordination  ;  and  if  the  form  of  words  used  has  been 
deliberately  chosen  for  the  very  pur2]ose  of  omitting  what  is 
implied  in  certain  prayers  which,  however  suitable,  are  not  of 
the  very  essence  of  Ordination,  the  inevitable  inference  is  that 
when  the  Bishop  comes  to  do  the  very  thing  for  which  the  prayers 
have  been  a  preparation,  he  carefully  guards  against  being  sup- 
posed to  intend  what  the  prayers,  taken  alone,  might  have  been 
supposed  to  imply.  I  offer  this  opinion  with  great  diffidence, 
but  "with  my  present  lights"  it  seems  to  me  sound.  I  hope 
Protestantism  has  gained  more  than  it  has  lost  by  degrading 
Orders  from  the  dignity  of  a  true  Sacrament.  "The  essential 
matter  and  form  of  Ordination  consists  only  in  the  imposition 
of  the  Bishop's  hands,  joined  to  the  in\T)cation  of  the  Holy 
Spirit."  My  objection  to  the  alternative  form  in  our  own 
Ordinal  is  that  it  contains  no  "  invocation  of  the  Holy  Spirit  "; 
and  that  it  was  adopted  for  the  very  purpose  of  excluding  that 
invocation.     Here  follows  Bishop  Kerfoot's  letter : 

"August  6,  1874. 
"  ....  In  the  American  Church,  I  believe  that  most  of  the 
bishops  use  the  words  '  Receive  the  Holy  Ghost '  in  ordaining  a 
priest.  1  always  do.  But  the  alternative  form  is,  we  of  course 
hold,  equally  efficient.  The  fact  is,  as  you  of  course  know,  that 
in  some  services  (I  remember  the  fact  so  given  in  Maskell)  no 
such  one  form,  or  act,  or  set  of  words  was  used  ;  but  the  '  Order ' 
given  was  defined  by  the  whole  service,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  in- 
voked in  more  parts  than  that  one  part  of  the  ordination.  The 
form  prescribed  in  the  Church  of  England  Prayer  Book,  and 
most  rightly  kept  in  our  American  Prayer  Book,  and  among  us 
generally  used,  is  surely  right ;  but  it  is  not  essential ;  nor  is  it 
the  earliest  form  or  mode.  I  prefer  and  always  use  it,  but  no 
principle  is  involved  necessarily  .  •  .  the  office  given  is  defined 
all  through  the  service.  If  any  advocates  of  low  views  think 
they  would  gain  by  leaving  out  that  special  form,  they  are  mis- 
taken. .  .  . 


ABSOLUTION.  205 

"But  I  am  clear  that  all  acts  of  bishop  or  priest  or  deacon 
&VQ  precatory.  '  I  baptize,' etc.,  'Receive  the  Holy  Ghost  for 
the  office  and  work  of  a  bishop,'  etc. — all  are  prayers  of  office  ; 
prayers  of  sure  efficacy,  because  put  up  by  the  officer  commis- 
sioned so  to  invoke  the  gift  of  the  Spirit.  (Of  course  sacramental 
gifts  may  be  hindered  by  the  wilful  sin  of  the  person. )  None 
of  us  has,  or  can  have,  grace  to  give,  nor  can  we  command. 
The  Holy  Ghost  is  present,  and  He  gives  the  grace  in  the  sacra- 
ment and  in  the  ordination.  Putting  it  thus  (and  this  seems 
to  me  a  strong  view,  too),  I' have  found  believing  Evangelicals 
assent  at  once  and  cheerfully.  I  try  to  win  them  to  realize  and 
confess  their  own  convictions.     Most  truly  yours, 

J.  B.  Kebfoot." 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD  IN  THE  EPIDEMIC 
OF  VIOLENCE  AND  FEAUD.* 

And  it  shall  be,  if  thou  do  at  all  forget  the  Lord  thy  God, 
and  walk  after  other  gods,  and  serve  them,  and  worship  them, 
I  testify  against  you  this  day  that  ye  shall  surely  perish.  As 
the  nations  ichich  the  Lord  destroyeth  before  your  face,  so  shall 
ye  perish ;  because  ye  would  not  be  obedient  unto  the  voice  of  the 
Lord  your  God. — Deut.  viii.  19-20. 

What  fruit  had  ye  then  in  those  things  ivhereof  ye  are  now 
ashamed  ?  for  the  end  of  those  tldngs  is  death.  .  ,  .  The  wages 
of  sin  is  death. — Rom.  vi.  21-23. 

I  propose  to  speak  to  you  this  morning  about  a  very 
serious  epidemic,  of  which  it  is  only  too  plain  that 
very  many  of  us  are  sick,  and  of  which  no  small 
number  have  pitifully  died.  You  will  find  no  mention 
of  this  epidemic  in  any  bills  of  mortality,  or  in  the 
reports  of  any  Bureau  of  Vital  Statistics.  It  is  not  the 
Asiatic  cholera,  nor  yellow  fever,  nor  small-pox,  nor 
diphtheria;  it  makes  itself  manifest  by  no  eruption  of 
pustules,  no  blotches  on  the  skin,  no  exhausting  nausea, 
or  agony  of  colic,  or  racking  torture  of  cramp.  Would 
to  God,  one  might  almost  say — would  to  God  that  it 
did!  for  then,  perhaps,  we  might  betake  ourselves  to 
some  sort  of  doctoring  before  the  fatal  collapse.  On 
the  contrary,  this  epidemic  is  ushered  in,  not  by  the 
parching  heat  of  fever,  but  only  by  a  soothing  and 
delicious  rise  of  temperature;  not  by  acute  pain,  but 
by  a  pleasing  exaltation  of  sensibility.  We  think  that 
we  are  better  than  we  ever  were;  the  world  looks 

*  Preached  on  the  fourteenth  Sunday  after  Trinity,  1884. 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD.  207 

brighter  to  ns  ;  the  gayeties  and  delights  of  society  are 
more  exhilarating ;  we  say  to  ourselves  again  and  again 
in  happy  surprise :  "  Who  could  have  believed  that  it 
was  possible  to  get  so  much  enjoyment  out  of  life  ?" 
We  are  lured  on  to  our  destruction,  because  the  worse 
we  get  the  better  we  think  we  are;  and  we  scarcely 
realize  that  we  are  sick  until  the  death-rattle  is  in  our 
throats  and  the  death-sweat  upon  our  brows. 

The  epidemic  I  am  about  to  speak  of  is  the  epidemic 
of  fraud  and  vice,  of  abject  cowardice  and  brutal 
violence.  And,  to  prevent  misunderstanding,  I  may 
here  say  over  again  what  I  have  said  to  you  scores  of 
times  before :  I  do  not  believe  the  perfection  of  Chris- 
tian character  requires,  I  do  not  even  believe  that 
Christian  perfection  admits  of,  a  rigorous  asceticism.* 

*  Of  course  I  put  out  of  consideration  highly  exceptional  indi- 
vidual temperaments,  or  conditions  of  society  ;  nor  do  I  include 
under  "  rigorous  asceticism  "  such  abstinence  or  fasting  as  the 
Catholic  Church  requires  from  her  members.  Hermits  and 
monks  and  nuns  have  had  a  great  work  to  do,  both  for  the 
Church  and  the  world,  and  in  innumerable  instances  they  have 
nobly  done  it. 

Wake  again,  Teutonic  Father-ages, 

Speak  again,  beloved  primaeval  creeds  ; 
Flash  ancestral  spirit  from  your  pages, 

Wake  the  greedy  age  to  noble  deeds. 

Tell  us  how  of  old  our  saintly  mothers 
Schooled  themselves  by  vigU,  fast  and  prayer, 

Learnt  to  love  as  Jesus  loved  before  them, 

While  they  bore  the  cross  which  poor  men  bear. 

Tell  us  how  our  stout,  crusading  fathers 
Fought  and  died  for  God,  and  not  for  gold  ; 

Let  their  love,  their  faith,  their  boyish  daring, 
Distance-mellowed,  gild  the  days  of  old. 


208  THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD. 

The  world  in  which  God  has  thought  fit  to  place  us  is 
a  very  good  and  beautiful  world ;  and  we  are  not  only 
permitted,  but  we  are  hound,  to  make  the  very  utmost 
tliat  we  possibly  can  make  of  all  its  innocent  enjoy- 
ments. To  be  indifferent  to  the  beauties  of  Nature, 
the  ravishing  delights  of  music,  is  to  be  blind  and  deaf 
to  revelations  of  the  beauty  and  harmony  of  God. 
Our  Heavenly  Father  has  promised  to  us  that  we  shall 
not  be  tempted  above  what  we  are  able  to  bear ;  and, 
that  He  may  keep  one  part  of  this  gracious  promise  to 
us,  He  has  furnished  us  with  innumerable  relaxations 
and  recreations  and  refreshing  delights.  We  are  wicked 
and  ungrateful  when  we  fling  these  precious  gifts 
away.  No  human  spirit  can  bear  the  unrelieved 
pressure  of  business,  the  unremitting  strain  and  in- 
cessant exactions  of  mere  duty:  in  ways  innumerable 
does  God  "  give  to  His  beloved  sleep."  Not  only  the 
yellow  fields  of  waving  corn,  but  the  very  weeds,  are 
beautiful ;  and  the  sublime  majesty  of  the  hills  from 
which  we  dig  coal  and  iron  fills  our  souls  with  an  un- 
utterable rapture  of  delight  and  awe.  And  when  we 
turn  to  human  society  and  the  ordinary  occupations  of 
mankind,  we  still  find  nothing  evil.  Business  is  not 
only  lawful,  it  is  not  only  necessary,  it  is  also,  in  its 

Tell  us  how  the  sexless  workers,  thronging, 

Angel-tended,  round  the  convent  door, 
Wrought  to  Christian  faith  and  holy  order 

Savage  hearts  alike  and  barren  moor. 

Ye  who  built  the  churches  where  we  worship, 
Ye  who  framed  the  laws  by  which  we  move. 

Fathers,  long  belied,  and  long  forsaken. 
Oh  !  forgive  the  children  of  your  love  ! 

(C.  KiNGSLEY  :  The /Saint's  Tragedy.) 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD.  209 

very  essence,  morally  and  spiritually  good.  Without  a 
metaphor  and  without  exaggeration,  it  is  among  the 
means  of  grace.  There  is  scarcely  a  virtue  which  it 
does  not  bring  into  exercise  and  render  more  healthful 
and  robust.  Moreover,  in  every  progressive  and  pros- 
perous country  it  is,  in  spite  of  human  folly  and 
human  sin,  for  the  most  part  morally  sound.  So  long 
as  society  is  held  together  at  all,  it  must  needs  be  held 
together  by  truth  and  honesty. 

We  may  go  forth,  then,  "  to  our  work  and  to  our 
labour  until  the  evening "  with  a  good  courage  and 
a  good  conscience.  We  are  doing  our  duty,  our 
duty  to  Almighty  God,  when  we  throw  ourselves 
heart  and  soul  into  our  daily  occupations.  To  the 
faithful  child  of  God  there  is  nothing  common  or 
unclean ;  nor  need  we  in  the  least  distress  ourselves 
when  our  virtues,  our  diligence,  and  thrift,  and 
integrity,  and  foresight,  and  versatility,  bring  their 
proper  reward.  He  who  possesses  these  qualities 
can  scarcely  fail  in  a  country  like  this,  of  practi- 
cally unlimited  extent  and  inexhaustible  resources, 
to  grow  rich;  he  may,  easily  enough,  become  very 
rich;  nor  is  he  morally  justified  in  setting  any  arti- 
ficial and  wilful  limits  to  his  accumulations.  No- 
body has  a  right  to  say,  "  I  am  rich  enough "  so 
long  as  it  is  honestly  possible  for  him  to  become 
richer.  We  may  depend  upon  it  that  God  Himself 
will  take  care  to  keep  us  as  poor  as  it  is  necessary  that 
we  should  remain.  Perhaps  you  may  say — if  anybody 
so  fortunate  is  listening  to  me — "  I  have  more  wealth 
already  than  I  know  what  to  do  with;  it  has  got  so 
deeply  and  firmly  rooted  that  it  seems  to  grow  of  itself, 
and  every  new  success  brings  only  a  new  responsibility 


210  THE  JUDGMENT   OF  GOD. 

and  a  heavier  burden."  But  surely,  my  friend,  if  you 
will  look  only  twice  at  the  matter,  you  will  perceive  in 
a  moment  that  you  are  deluding  yourself.  If  you  do 
not  know  what  to  do  with  your  wealth,  there  are 
thousands  of  people  who  can  teach  you.  Are  there, 
then,  no  poor  people  left  in  the  world  ?  None  who  are 
hungry,  or  athirst,  or  naked,  or  sick,  or  in  prison? 
Are  there  no  young  men  whom,  out  of  your  super- 
abundance, you  could  start  in  life,  and  help  in  their 
first  struggles  towards  an  honest  independence?  Did 
you  never  hear  of  such  a  thing  as  founding  or  endow- 
ing hospitals,  and  universities,  and  public  libraries? 
Would  it  be  quite  impossible  for  you,  being  so  over- 
burdened with  riches,  to  adorn  your  city  with  some 
enduring  monument  in  honour  of  the  illustrious 
dead  ?  Nay,  to  come  down  to  a  matter  so  ridiculously 
minute  that  it  may  well  have  escaped  your  attention, 
have  you  never  happened  to  notice  that,  even  in  this 
very  Baltimore,  the  steeples  of  two  of  your  richest 
churches  are  yet,  after  many  years,  unfinished  ?  Might 
it  not  be  worth  your  while  to  inquire  whether  there 
are  any  heathen  yet  to  be  converted  ?  and  whether  God 
may  not  have  bestowed  upon  you  wealth,  and  the 
power  of  getting  more  wealth,  that,  even  in  far-ofif 
lands,  generations  to  come  may  mingle  with  their 
prayers  and  thanksgivings  the  name  of  a  benefactor 
unknown  except  by  his  generous  gifts?  Believe  me, 
when  I  hear  a  man,  apparently  in  earnest,  affirming 
that  he  cares  nothing  for  wealth  and  wants  no  more  of 
it,  I  can  never  help  feeling  sure  that  he  knows  very 
much  less  than  he  suspects  of  his  own  mind. 

I  repeat,  then,  that  Avhen  I  say  a  serious  and  danger- 
ous epidemic  is  upon  us,  I  do  not  mean  that  everybody 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD,  211 

is  sick  and  dying.  Everybody  is  not  sick  and  dying  of 
cholera  in  Naples.*  When  we  read  that  in  a  single 
day  there  have  been  in  that  city  three  hundred  deaths, 
we  know  perfectly  well  that  there  are  also  some  two 
hundred  and  ninety-nine  thousand  survivors.  But 
does  anybody  for  that  reason  regard  the  cholera  in 
Naples  as  a  danger  to  be  trifled  with  ?  And,  similarly, 
the  epidemic  of  which  I  speak,  the  epidemic  of  fraud 
and  vice,  of  abject  cowardice  and  brutal  violence,  is 
real  and  serious.  Nothing  can  make  it  more  real  than 
it  is ;  but  it  is  rendered  far  more  serious  by  general 
indifference.  Multitudes  of  people  ignore  it ;  and  yet 
many  more  regard  this  deadly  sickness  as  merely  sporadic 
or  accidental,  traceable  to  no  ascertainable  cause,  and 
likely  enough  to  die  out  of  itself.  It  is  impossible, 
indeed,  for  those  who  read  the  newspapers  to  doubt  the 
facts ;  but  there  are  very  many  people  who  regard  it  as 
a  kind  of  duty,  or  at  least  as  a  mark  of  refinement,  to 
remain  as  ignorant  as  they  possibly  can  of  everything 
which  is  disagreeable  or  offensive.  They  are  like  the 
elegant  triflers  in  Boccaccio's  Decameron  who,  while 
the  plague  was  raging  around  them,  betook  themselves 
to  enchanted  gardens  of  bliss,  and  passed  their  time  in 
a  round  of  gayeties  and  in  telling  one  another  stories  of 
fashionable  lust.  But  if  you  will  not  read  the  news- 
papers, I  will  take  care  for  once  that  you  shall  hear 
something  of  what  they  contain.  I  will  compel  you, 
so  far  as  it  is  in  my  power,  to  realize  what  is  the  moral 
condition  of  that  society  of  which  you  form  a  part.  I 
will  try  to  show  you  how  it  has  come  to  be  what  it 
most  unquestionably  is.  I  will  do  my  best  to  force 
upon  your  convictions  what  are  the  only  remedies  of 

*  Autumn  of  1884. 


212  THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD. 

which  this  most  dangerous  disease  admits ;  and  I  will 
try  to  make  you  feel,  if  only  God  will  so  far  help  me, 
that  you  yourselves  must  come  down  from  your  lofty 
eminence  of  selfish  serenity,  and  with  your  own  hands 
apply  those  remedies  without  which,  most  surely, 
every  one  of  us  must  perish.  God  has  no  blessing 
whatever  for  people  whose  religion  consists  only  in 
enjoying  privileges  without  discharging  duties;  and 
nothing  is  more  absolutely  certain  than  that  if  you  are 
satisfied  to  save  your  own  souls  while  your  neighbours 
are  hurrying  to  destruction,  your  own  souls  will  be 
lost. 

Where,  then,  shall  I  begin  the  evidence  ?  For  my 
difficulty  is  not  to  find,  but  to  select  it.  I  might 
begin  at  the  very  top,  and  remind  you  how  fraud  has 
been  rampant  and  triumphant  in  the  high  places  of 
the  government  of  this  nation;*  a  fraud,  and  an 
impunity  of  fraud,  which  is  the  amazement  and  terror 
of  the  whole  civilized  world.  I  might  remind  you  of 
gigantic  and  colossal  dishonesty  in  almost  every 
department  of  government  and  administration,  left 
even  without  investigation  until  the  disgust  of  an 
outraged  people  could  be  no  longer  disregarded.  I 
might  remind  you  of  investigations  more  recklessly 
impudent  and  shamelessly  dishonest  than  the  very 
frauds  themselves.  I  might  remind  you  of  prosecu- 
tions, undertaken  by  the  highest  legislative  authority, 
the  very  object  of  which  seemed  to  be  to  protect  the 
criminal  and  to  defeat  justice;  and  how  completely 
this  object  was  accomplished.  I  might  tell  you  the 
familiar  story  of  bribery  and  corruption  in   almost 

*I  assume  that  charges  made  by  all  the  political  parties  and 
all  their  newspapers  must  have  some  real  foundation. 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD.  213 

every  State  of  the  Union,  and  in  almost  every  city  in 
every  State.  I  might  remind  you  of  the  repudiation, 
by  what  once  were  august  and  honoured  legislatures,  of 
their  undisputed  debts.  I  might  name  to  you  those 
names — the  names  of  men  once  high  in  office  and 
known  over  half  the  world — which  by  an  almost  uni- 
versal suffrage  have  been  doomed  to  everlasting  infamy ; 
doomed  for  crimes  which  would  have  sent  any  labour- 
ing man  to  the  penitentiary  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 
But  I  will  not  begin  on  this  high  stratum:  I  will 
begin  rather  at  the  base  of  the  social  pyramid,  and  I 
will  remind  you  of  what  is  the  present  condition  of 
what  we  call  the  working-classes.* 

Nobody,  of  course,  can  deny  that  there  is  among  the 
working- classes  a  very  serious  amount  of  dissatisfaction 
and  discontent;  and  although  a  large  part  of  this 
discontent  and  dissatisfaction  is  merely  silly  and 
irrational,  it  is  also  what  we  all  agree  to  call  exceed- 
ingly natural.  For,  in  fact — and  this  is  what  we 
generally  mean  by  natural — we  are  ourselves  all  liable 
to  dissatisfaction  and  discontent;  and  how  many  of  us 
in  church  this  morning,  when  we  really  come  to  think 
of  it,  even  though  we  wear  broadcloth,  and  have  to 
keep  up  what  is  called  an  appearance,  are,  at  the 
bottom,  workingmen  ?  We  also,  like  a  coloured  hod- 
carrier,  earn  our  living  by  sweat  of  brow  or  brain. 
We  also  earn  wages,  though  with  a  due  regard  to  our 
own  dignity  we  call  them  salaries  or  fees;  and  we  also 
are  often  dissatisfied  with  our  wages,  or  salaries,  or 
fees.  We  are  silly  enough  to  think  we  deserve  more 
than  we  get;  and  I  say  that  this  is  silly,  because  it  is 

*Only  too  many  far  more  conclusive  illustrations  have  been 
forced  upon  our  attention  during  the  last  two  years. 


214  THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD. 

always  foolish  to  complain  of  what  it  is  in  onr  own 
power,  at  any  moment  of  our  lives,  if  not  to  remedy, 
at  least  to  test.  Are  you  dissatisfied,  my  friend,  with 
your  wages,  or  salary,  or  fees?  And  do  you  really 
think  you  are  worth  more  than  you  get?  Nothing 
can  possibly  be  easier — though  I  warn  you  to  try  the 
experiment  with  extreme  caution — nothing,  I  repeat, 
is  easier  than  to  find  out  if  you  are  mistaken.  Give 
up  your  present  position,  go  out  into  the  open  labour 
market  and  offer  your  services  to  the  highest  bidder. 
The  competition  of  employers  for  really  competent 
Avorkmen,  in  all  departments  of  work,  is  quite  as  severe 
as  the  competition  of  skilful  workmen  for  employment. 
Do  you  hesitate? — as  indeed  you  very  justly  may: 
then  there  is  a  lurking  suspicion  in  your  own  bosom 
that  you  are  not  worth  more,  and  your  dissatisfaction 
is  silly.  By  dissatisfaction,  then,  I  mean  the  feeling 
that  we  are  not  getting  as  much  as  we  ought  to  get  in 
remuneration  for  our  services ;  by  discontent  I  mean 
the  detestable  feeling  which  expresses  itself  in  such 
terms  as  these :  "  My  neighbour  is  ten  times,  or  ten 
thousand  times,  as  rich  as  I  am,  and  I  am  as  good  as 
he  is,  or  better ;  why  should  he  ride  in  a  carriage  while 
I  must  walk,  and  why  should  he  have  command  of  all 
the  luxuries  of  life  while  I  can  scarcely  secure  its 
necessaries  ?"  And  is  it  really  possible  that  a  sane  man, 
except  in  moments  of  physical  depression,  when  he  is 
scarcely  master  of  himself,  can  encourage  or  cherish  such 
thoughts  as  these  ?  What  harm  is  my  rich  neighbour 
doing  to  me  ?  Most  likely,  if  I  am  a  workingman,  he  is 
employing  me  and  paying  me  wages;  but,  in  any  case,  is 
he  robbing  me  of  a  single  cent,  or  does  he  deprive  me  of 
a  single  blessing  ?    Does  not  the  sun  shine  as  warmly 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD.  215 

and  brightly,  and  the  moon  with  as  serene  a  beauty, 
upon  me  as  upon  him  ?  Has  he  been  able  to  monopo- 
lize the  atmosphere,  or  to  enclose  the  ocean  within 
metes  and  bounds?  Can  he  deprive  me  of  the  fra- 
grance of  the  flowers  or  the  songs  of  birds  ?  Can  he 
steal  from  me  the  love  of  wife  and  children,  the  respect 
of  ray  neighbours,  the  dear  affection  of  friends,  the 
testimony  of  a  good  conscience  ?  Let  him  be  as  rich 
as  he  will,  and  if  it  is  for  his  true  happiness  let  him 
grow  richer  and  richer  every  day  of  his  life ;  he  does 
no  harm  to  me. 

If  the  dissatisfaction  and  discontent  of  the  working- 
classes  amounted  to  no  more  than  this,  it  might  safely 
be  left  to  cure  itself,  or  be  cured  by  better  education 
and  a  wider  knowledge  of  the  world.  But  it  is  very 
much  more  than  this.  If  you  will  talk  to  any  intelli- 
gent workingman  of  the  discontented  and  dissatisfied 
sort,  he  will  say  to  you  something  like  this :  "  Of  course 
we  should  like  to  be  better  off  than  we  are,  and  we 
sometimes  envy  rich  people;  but,  after  all,  we  don't 
complain  that  they  are  rich  ;  what  we  do  complain  of 
is  that  many  men  and  corporations  have  grown  rich 
by  what  everybody  acknowledges  to  be  fraud,  and 
when  they  are  rich  they  can  buy  whatever  they  like. 
They  can  buy  laws;  they  can  buy  charters;  they  can 
buy  juries ;  it  is  not  now,  perhaps,  as  bad  as  it  used  to 
be,  but  not  long  ago  they  could  buy  judges.  AVhat 
would  happen  to  me  if  I  were  out  of  work  for  three 
months  ?  I  should  have  to  starve,  and,  what  is  much 
worse,  my  wife  and  children  would  have  to  starve  too. 
And  if,  while  they  were  clamoring  for  bread,  and 
clothes  just  enough  to  cover  their  nakedness,  I  were 
to  steal  a  five-dollar  bill,  what  would  happen  to  me 


216  THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD. 

then  ?  I  should  have  to  go  to  the  penitentiary,  and  I 
don't  pretend  to  deny  that  it  would  be  right  that  I 
should  go ;  at  any  rate,  it  would  be  right  enough  for 
me  to  go  if  everybody  else  who  did  the  same  thing 
were  sent  to  the  penitentiary  also.  But  if  the  man- 
ager, or  cashier,  or  director  of  a  bank,  with  a  certain 
income  of  ten  or  twenty  thousand  a  year,  and  his  wife 
and  children  rolling  in  luxury — if  lie  were  to  steal,  not 
five  dollars,  but  five  hundred  thousand,  not  for  the 
sake  of  keeping  his  wife  and  children  from  starvation, 
but  for  the  sake  of  gambling  in  stocks,  what  would 
happen  to  himf  Nothing  whatever  luould  happen  to 
him!  Dozens  of  people  would  find  themselves  so 
mixed  up  with  his  frauds  that  it  would  be  their 
interest  to  pay  his  thefts  and  hush  the  matter  up.  If 
he  were  arrested  and  tried  he  would  buy  the  jury;  if 
he  were  convicted  and  imprisoned  he  would  buy  the 
jailers;  and  in  six  months'  time  we  should  discover 
that  with  his  ill-gotten  gains  he  had  crossed  the  ocean, 
and  had  settled  down  to  spend  the  rest  of  his  days  in 
idle  luxury  on  the  sunny  shores  of  the  Mediterranean." 
Something  like  that  is  what  our  dissatisfied  and  dis- 
contented workingman  would  say;  and  the  worst  of  it 
is  that  everybody  in  church  this  morning  knows  that 
it  is  only  too  frequently  and  too  scandalously  true. 

Hence  it  comes  to  pass  that  the  dissatisfaction  and 
discontent  of  the  working-classes,  being  to  no  small 
extent  justifiable,  becomes  venomous  and  very  highly 
dangerous.  They  forget  that  even  many  exceptions  do 
not  disprove  the  rule.  They  believe,  or  half  believe, 
that  "  all  these  things  are  against  them  " — society, 
wealth,  capital — nay,  the  very  laws  and  the  administra- 
tors of  the  laws.     What,  then,  is  left  them  but  to  take 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD.  217 

the  law  into  their  own  hands  ?  Their  condition  not 
only  needs  improving,  but  by  perfectly  lawful  and 
practicable  methods  might  witliout  difficulty  be  im- 
proved. If  capital  is  too  strong  for  them,  they  might, 
by  judicious  co-operation,  themselves  become  capital- 
ists. If  a  single  workman  cannot  contract  with  an 
employer  on  equal  terms,  workmen  can  combine,  and 
can  then  afford,  if  not  to  dictate,  at  least  to  wait.  But, 
goaded  on  by  injustice  as  well  as  misfortune,  and  also 
misled  by  unprincipled  demagogues,  who  at  least  can 
make  an  easy  living  out  of  their  self-assumed  leader- 
ship, they  have  no  patience  to  wait ;  and  what  is  the 
result  ? 

Not  long  ago — I  think  it  was  in  Pennsylvania,  but 
it  matters  nothing  where — the  workpeople  in  a  glass 
manufactory  struck  for  higher  wages,  as  they  had  a 
perfect  right  to  do.  Their  employers  accepted  the 
situation  and  proceeded  to  carry  on  their  work  with 
the  help  of  other  workmen ;  as  they  also,  and  the  other 
workmen  so  employed  by  them,  had  a  perfect  right  to 
do.  But  the  strikers  were  not  satisfied  to  be  free 
themselves  :  they  were  determined  to  rob  their  fellow- 
workmen  of  the  means  of  earning  an  honest  living.  It 
mattered  little  to  them  how  many  common  labourers 
there  were,  for  they  were  all  useless  without  a  skilled 
foreman,  and  a  skilled  foreman  had  been  secured. 
Him,  therefore,  they  determined  to  disable.  They 
attacked  him  in  a  hovel  or  cottage  where,  hearing  of 
their  purpose,  he  had  taken  refuge.  They  beat  him 
nearly  to  death,  and  then  with  their  cruel  hands  they 
tore  his  eyes  out  of  their  sockets ;  and  so,  blind  and 
wounded,  they  left  him  to  perish.  We  may  assume 
that  there  was  a  sheriff  in  the  county,  a  Governor  in 


218  THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD. 

the  state.  And  what  did  they  do?  There  was  a 
whole  mob  of  strikers  engaged  actively  in  the  outrage, 
every  one  of  whom  was  an  accomplice.  So  the  authori- 
ties— if  they  can  be  called  authorities — arrested  two 
or  three  of  the  wrong  men,  and  were,  of  course, 
obliged  to  release  them.  That  is  what  they  did — 
"only  that  and  nothing  more."  And  the  unhappy 
victim,  probably  dead  long  since,  unSer  the  protection 
of  the  American  flag  and  in  the  very  heart  of  American 
civilization,  was  left  unhelped  and  unavenged. 

Probably  at  the  present  moment,  certainly  a  few 
days  ago,  large  districts  in  Ohio  were  in  virtual  insur- 
rection— that  is  to  say,  hundreds  of  men  were  setting 
the  laws  at  defiance;  and  the  "authorities" — for  one 
knows  not  what  else  to  call  them,  though  authority 
they  had  none — were  unable  or  unwilling  to  protect 
the  lives  and  property  of  the  peaceful  citizens.  The 
miners  had  struck  for  wages.  They  destroyed  property, 
they  committed  many  murders.  The  sheriff  was  so 
reasonably  alarmed  that  he  telegraphed  for  help  to  the 
Governor  of  the  State.  The  Governor  refused  to  help 
until,  by  more  citizens  being  murdered  and  houses 
wrecked,  the  sheriff  should  have  iwoved  himself  power- 
less. Meanwhile,  leaving  his  "  sword  "  behind  him — 
that  sword  without  which  he  was  for  all  practical 
purposes  good  for  nothing — that  high  official,  the 
Governor  of  the  State,  betakes  himself  to  the  disturbed 
districts,  and  man  to  man  addresses  himself  to  the 
rioters.  He  begs  and  beseeches  them  to  spare  him  the 
responsibility  of  being  a  Governor.  He  makes  eloquent 
speeches.  For  are  not  murderers  and  robbers  men  and 
brethren,  possessed  also  of  the  franchise,  and  able  to 
swell  a  majority  at  any  election?     I  know  not  what 


THE  judgme:nt  of  gou.  .       219 

has  come  of  it.  But  when  rulers  "bear  the  sword  in 
vain,"  we  surely  know  that  whoever  wants  the  sword 
will  sooner  or  later  snatch  it  out  of  the  hand  of  the 
incapable  magistrate.  And,  to  pass  from  violence  to 
fraud,  who  does  not  know  how  serious  an  item  in  the 
cost  of  all  production  is  the  price  that  must  be  paid, 
not  for  superior  skill  or  steady  labour,  but  as  a  heavy 
premium  for  insurance  against  sheer  robbery?  Who 
does  not  know  that  foremen  have  to  be  employed  not 
only  to  tell  the  workmen  what  to  do  and  how  to  do  it, 
but  to  watch  them,  that  they  do  not  steal  their  master's 
time,  or  by  reckless  and  dishonest  negligence  Avaste 
their  master's  materials  ? 

But  after  all  there  is  much  to  be  said  for  the  working- 
class.  They  are  not  very  thoroughly  educated ;  they 
know  very  little  of  the  world;  their  lot  in  life  is  very 
exacting  and  full  of  disappointments.  Therefore  I 
said,  Surely  these  are  poor ;  they  are  foolish  :  for  they 
know  not  the  way  of  the  Lord,  nor  the  judgment  of  their 
God.  1  will  get  me  unto  the  great  men,  and  will  speak 
unto  them  ;  for  they  have  hioton  the  way  of  the  Lord, 
and  the  judgment  of  their  God  :  but  these  have  altogether 
broken  the  yoke,  and  burst  the  bonds*  So  it  was  in  the 
days  of  the  prophet  Jeremiah,  and  so  it  is  in  our  days. 
It  is  in  the  higher  strata  of  business  and  society  that  we 
too  often  find  the  grossest,  the  most  dangerous,  and  the 
most  inexcusable  corruption.  You  remember  what  I 
said  to  you  about  business — that  it  is  lawful,  necessary, 
laudable,  and  in  the  main  honest.  And  what  I  said 
about  business  in  general  I  repeat  concerning  every 
separate  kind  of  genuine  business,  and  concerning  all 
the  conditions  that  are  essential  to  its  success.    But  let 

*  Jeremiah  v.  4-5, 


220       .  THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD, 

ns  consider,  for  a  moment,  what  genuine  business  is. 
It  is  always  a  series  of  exchanges — the  exchange  of 
commodities  for  commodities,  of  services  for  services, 
or  of  services  for  commodities.  There  is  no  real  busi- 
ness where  there  is  nothing  to  sell  and  nothing  to  buy. 
Again,  a  great  part  of  the  genuine  business  of  a  highly 
civilized  country  like  ours  consists  of  enormous  enter- 
prises which  can  only  be  carried  on  by  the  joint  con- 
tributions of  a  large  number  of  capitalists.  Each  of 
the  contributors  has  shares  in  the  general  stock ;  and 
these  shares,  as  everybody  knows,  are  for  many  people 
the  best  and  safest  of  investments.  Moreover,  these 
shares  can  most  advantageously  and  safely  be  obtained 
by  the  agency  of  experienced  and  skilful  brokers. 
Thus  we  have  stock  brokers  and  a  stock  exchange; 
and  this  business,  again,  being  a  genuine  business,  con- 
sisting in  a  real  exchange  of  one  real  thing  for  another 
real  thing  of  equivalent  value,  is  lawful  and  necessary 
and  laudable,  and  often  highly  and  honestly  lucrative. 
And  once  again,  no  business,  on  a  large  scale,  can  be 
carried  on  without  speculation ;  and  it  is  Worth  while 
to  consider  what  we  mean  by  speculation.  We  mean 
the  habit  of  looking  about  us,  looking  as  far  ahead  as 
our  eyes  can  see ;  taking  care  that  we  do  not  give  more 
than  is  necessary  for  what  we  want  to  buy,  or  get  less 
than  we  are  honestly  entitled  to  for  what  we  want  to 
sell.  This,  then,  as  a  necessary  condition  of  genuine 
business,  is  itself  also  lawful  and  necessary  and  laud- 
able. 

But  everybody  knows  that  there  is  a  large  amount  of 
business  carried  on,  both  in  this  country  and  in  Europe, 
which  is  not  business  at  all.  It  does  not  consist  in  the 
exchange  of  one  valuable  service  or  commodity  for  an- 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD.  221 

other.  The  sellers  have  really  nothing  to  sell ;  and  if 
they  had,  the  buyers  do  not  want  to  buy.  The  memor- 
anda of  their  transactions  are  of  course  committed  to 
writing;  and  in  these  documents  one  might  find  un- 
doubtedly such  words  as  cotton  or  coffee  or  corn ;  but 
neither  party  to  the  transaction  will  touch  a  grain  of 
wheat  or  a  bean  of  coffee  or  a  flock  of  cotton.  One  will 
gain  by  the  transaction  and  the  other  will  lose.  The  one 
may  gain  a  fortune  and  the  other  may  be  beggared;  but, 
however  little  the  winner  gains  or  however  much,  he 
will  have  given  no  valuable  consideration  in  return. 
The  parties  engaged  in  this  kind  of  "  business  "  might 
have  expressed  everything  they  wanted  to  say,  with  the 
necessary  variation  of  time  or  rate  or  form,  in  the 
following  neat  formula — for  the  one :  "  I  will  bet  you 
two  to  one  that  in  sixty  days  corn  will  be  so  much  a 
bushel  "  ;  and  for  the  other:  "  I  take  your  bet."  Now, 
can  anybody  fail  to  perceive  that,  by  whatever  name 
we  may  choose  to  call  a  transaction  of  this  sort,  it  is 
pure  and  simple  gambling  ?  For  what  is  the  essence 
of  gambling  ?  It  has  indeed  many  adjuncts,  all  of  them 
wicked  and  detestable;  but  what  is  it  in  itself  in  spite 
of  all  disguises  and  refinements?  Gambling  is  a  trans- 
action in  which  a  man  seeks  to  make  money  on  a  skilful 
computation  of  chances  and  without  the  exchange  of 
any  one  valuable  commodity  for  another.  Now,  we 
know,  everybody  knows,  that  transactions  are  carried 
on  in  this  country  and  in  all  highly  civilized  countries, 
under  the  forms  of  business,  which  are  exactly  of  this 
kind.  In  this  kind  of  gambling  thousands  of  millions 
of  dollars  are  every  year  invested.  Fortunes  are  won 
and  lost  as  idle  youths  win  cents  or  dollars  at  poker  or 
at  horse-races.     And  as  chances  within  a  very  limited 


222  THE  JUDGMENT  OF   GOD. 

space  or  time  are  wholly  incalculable,  every  gambler 
is  sorely  tempted,  and  far  beyond  the  power  of  human 
nature  to  resist,  to  load  the  dice  —to  lie  and  cheat,  to 
invent  false  reports,  to  circulate  dishonest  and  un- 
founded rumors,  and  so  to  make  a  fortune  out  of  covet- 
ousness  and  credulity.  Now,  let  ns  clearly  understand 
that  no  matter  how  large  tiie  fortune  a  man  may 
accumulate  by  transactions  of  this  kind,  no  matter  what 
good  use  he  may  be  supposed  to  make  of  his  money,  no 
matter  what  his  name  or  position  in  society,  he  is  purely 
and  simply  a  gambler.  His  business,  if  we  may  so 
abuse  the  word,  is  in  its  very  nature  incurably  dis- 
honest, and  no  tricks  of  sophistry  can  by  any  possibility 
clear  it  of  fraud. 

And  as  we  perceive  that  this  is  gambling  by  merely 
inspecting  its  nature,  so  we  might  guess  that  it  was 
gambling  by  observing  its  effects.  If  a  clerk  in  your 
store  embezzles  fifty  dollars,  what  is  your  immediate 
and  instinctive  suspicion  ?  You  will  instantly  suspect, 
and  you  will  almost  always  be  right  in  the  suspicion, 
that  he  has  lost  money  by  gambling.  And  if  the 
cashier  of  a  bank  embezzles  fifty  thousand  dollars, 
what  is  our  immediate  and  instinctive  suspicion  about 
him  ?  What  are  the  first  questions  we  ask  ?  Where 
do  the  detectives  look  for  an  explanation  of  his  villainy, 
or  for  the  stolen  property  some  portion  of  which  they 
may  hope  to  recover?  They  always  look  to  the  stock 
exchange.  They  always  try  to  find  out  through  what 
broker  he  has  been  speculating.  And  they  almost 
always  discover  that  that  was  at  the  bottom  of  his  mis- 
fortunes and  the  root  of  his  crimes. 

And  now,  young  men,  let  me  address  a  few  fatherly 
counsels  separately  to  you.     If  you  have  acquired  the 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD.  223 

habit  of  betting,  believe  me  it  would  have  been  far 
better  for  you  if  you  had  acquired  the  habit  of  taking 
slow  poison.  There  is  one  end,  and  one  end  only, 
before  you,  from  which  nothing  but  a  very  miracle  of 
divine  grace  can  save  you,  and  that  end  is  infamy  and 
a  jail.  When  you  are  as  old  as  I  am  and  have  seen  as 
much  of  the  world,  your  memory  will  be  haunted 
forever  by  wan  faces,  haggard  with  misery  and  despair, 
gazing  upon  you  through  prison-bars.  There  will 
ring  forever  in  your  ears  the  wailing  of  heartbroken 
wives  and  beggared  children — men  and  women  and 
children  whom  gambling  has  brought  to  ruin.  Never 
bet ;  never,  whether  in  jest  or  earnest,  whether  much 
or  little;  never,  as  you  value  your  own  prospects  in 
life,  your  reputation,  your  peace  of  conscience,  the 
tender  affection  of  those  whose  happiness  is  bound  up 
in  yours ;  never,  as  you  love  God  or  hope  for  Heaven. 

And  when  so  large  and  important  a  part  of  the 
"business"  of  a  country  is  not  business  at  all,  but 
a  series  of  transactions  of  a  kind  which  no  possible 
adroitness  can  make  honest,  need  we  wonder  that  men 
pass  so  rapidly  from  the  fraud  which  is  respectable  and 
condoned,  to  that  vulgar  thieving  which,  if  only  it  be 
detected,  is  punished  by  a  universal  execration  ?  Every 
one  of  us  remembers  how  but  a  few  months  ago  the 
whole  civilized  world  stood  aghast  at  the  colossal 
iniquities  of  a  firm  to  which  one  of  the  most  illustrious 
of  our  citizens  had  been  persuaded  to  give  the  sanction 
of  his  name;  but  to  which,  unfortunately  for  those 
who  trusted  him,  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  give  the 
protection  of  any  personal  knowledge  and  superin- 
tendence. None  of  us  can  have  forgotten  how,  week 
after  week  and  almost  day  after  day,  bank  after  bank 
crashed  down — not  through  the  inevitable  misfortunes 


224  THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD. 

or  incalculable  niicertainties  of  a  very  complicated 
business,  but  through  sheer  dishonesty  and  vulgar 
thieving.  And  now,  within  the  last  few  days  and  in 
exactly  the  same  way,  another  bank  has  gone,  the 
National  Bank  of  New  Jersey.  Of  course  it  is  the  old 
story.  Directors  of  the  utmost  respectability  have 
done  everything  that  could  possibly  have  been  expected 
of  them — except  direct.  They  had  rendered  the  re- 
quired reports  and  sworn  the  necessary  oaths  as  to  the 
bank's  liabilities  and  assets,  and  the  only  thing  that 
they  had  omitted  to  do  was  to  ascertain  by  personal 
inspection  that  the  assets  did  really  exist.  And  so,  one 
morning,  they  learn  to  their  amazement  and  horror 
that  the  cashier  of  their  bank  is  dead ;  and  now,  at 
last,  they  begin  for  the  first  time  thoroughly  to  dis- 
charge their  obvious  and  most  rudimentary  duties. 
The  strong-boxes  are  set  before  them  for  actual  inspec- 
tion, and  alas !  they  find  that  the  negotiable  securities 
have  vanished  and  that  the  boxes  are  made  heavy  by 
parcels  of  worthless  brown  paper.  And  then,  to  com- 
plete the  tragedy,  the  manager  of  the  bank,  a  man  of 
hitherto  unblemished  reputation,  by  a  ghastly  suicide, 
follows  the  self-murdered  cashier  to  an  untimely  and 
dishonoured  grave. 

And  this  brings  me  to  consider  that  epidemic  of 
murder  and  suicide  from  which  the  country  is  suffering 
almost  as  severely  as  from  the  epidemic  of  fraud.  We 
look  back  Avith  horror  and  amazement  on  that  bloody 
penal  code  of  England  by  which,  only  a  few  genera- 
tions ago,  any  one  of  many  scores  of  offenses  might 
have  brought  a  man  to  the  gallows.  We  cannot  under- 
stand how  a  brave  and  high-spirited  people  could  have 
borne  to  live  under  a  tyranny  so  intolerable.     But  after 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD.  225 

all  there  is  something  to  be  said  for  even  these  sangui- 
nary laws.  At  the  very  least  they  icere  laws.  They  had 
been  lianded  down  as  a  part  of  the  common  law  of  the 
land  from  immemorial  time,  or  they  had  been  enacted 
in  open  Parliament.  Moreover,  they  were  administered 
in  courts  of  justice  according  to  definite  rules  of  pro- 
cedure and  a  most  stringent  law  of  evidence.  The 
meanest  culprit  accused  of  any  of  these  offenses  was 
tried  by  a  jury  of  his  peers ;  and,  if  convicted,  his 
sentence  was  executed  by  the  appointed  officers  of  the 
State.  But  the  laws  under  which  many  of  our  fellow- 
citizens  are  living  are  independent  alike  of  Congress 
and  of  courts.  They  are  neither  common  law  nor 
statute  law.  They  are  enacted  for  each  separate 
occasion,  not  by  the  representatives  of  the  people,  but 
by  the  brutal  passion  of  an  individual;  and  they  are 
executed  by  a  private  citizen  or  by  a  mob.  What 
offense  is  there,  in  one  part  of  this  country  or  another, 
which  is  not  a  capital  crime?  Does  a  man  "bite  his 
thumb  "  at  you  ? — then,  like  any  Montague  or  Capulet, 
you  draw  your  rapier  upon  him  or  shoot  him  dead  on 
the  spot.  Does  the  editor  of  a  newspaper  criticise  the 
public  action  of  a  State  or  municipal  officer  ?  does  a 
young  woman  refuse  the  unwelcome  addresses  of  a  too- 
persistent  suitor?  does  a  lawyer  obtain  a  judgment  for 
his  client  against  the  defendant  in  the  suit? — then  for 
any  one  of  these  offenses  the  unhappy  culprit,  withont 
judge  or  jury,  may  be  done  to  death.  And  do  we 
flatter  ourselves  that  these  are  only  the  brutal  crimes 
of  vulgar  ruffians?  Such  crimes,  indeed,  are  frequent 
enough,  not  only  in  this  country,  but  in  all  other 
countries ;  but  I  do  not  regard  them  as  symptoms  of  the 
epidemic.     The  crimes  I  speak  of  were  committed  by 


226  THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD. 

men  moving  in  what  is  called  good  society — by  editors 
of  newspapers — by  ex-judges  of  courts  of  law — by 
attorneys  actually  practising  in  those  courts.  They 
were  committed,  that  is  to  say,  by  men  whose  very 
oflBce  it  was  to  be  the  guides  and  instructors  of  their 
fellow-citizens;  who  were  the  sworn  representatives  and 
administrators  of  the  law  of  the  land.  And  the  criminals 
were  not  hooted  into  obscurity,  or  hanged  up  by  their 
necks  till  they  were  dead,  but  they  were  welcomed 
back  among  their  old  associates,  and  not  seldom  with 
the  shouts  of  applauding  congratulations.  Whole 
cities  and  whole  districts  condoned  their  crimes;  and 
proclaimed  to  the  world  that,  for  them  at  least,  law 
had  given  place  to  anarchy  and  chaos  had  come  back 
again.  And  suicide,  all  the  country  over,  among  men 
and  among  women  and  in  all  classes  of  society,  has 
become  far  more  common  than  even  murder.  Men 
are  sinking  into  an  abject  and  contemptible  cowardice. 
They  seem  unable  to  bear  even  the  commonest  calami- 
ties of  life.  An  insult,  a  disappointment  in  love,  the 
loss  of  a  few  hundreds  or  thousands  of  dollars,  the 
death  of  a  friend,  the  pain  of  a  sickness,  only  a  few 
days  ago  even  the  inconvenience  of  the  heat — any  one 
of  these  trifling  troubles  is  sufficient,  and  the  miserable 
poltroon  seeks  relief  and  rest  in  the  dishonoured  grave 
of  a  suicide. 

Such,  then,  is  the  epidemic  ;  and  now  I  want  us  care- 
fully to  consider  what  it  means;  what  we  ourselves 
have  to  do  with  it;  from  what  infected  port  it  comes; 
how  we  may  guard  ourselves  against  the  infection  ; 
and  how,  if  possible,  we  may  stamp  it  out.  Of  one 
thing,  at  any  rate,  we  may  be  certain — namely,  that  it 
is  an  effect ;  and  inasmuch  as  it  is  so  conspicuous  and 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD.  227 

even  terrific  a  phenomenon,  it  is  of  the  utmost  possible 
importance  tiiat  we  should  ascertain  its  cause.  And 
there  is  another  way  in  wliich  we  may  regard  it.  We 
are  here  this  morning  in  a  Christian  church,  and  not 
one  of  us  can  pretend  to  regard  the  existence  of  God 
or  His  personal  government  of  the  world  as  an  open 
question.  We  are  absolutely  certain  that  the  uni- 
formity of  nature  is  a  clear  manifestation  of  His  will ; 
and  that  consequents  follow  antecedents  because  He 
will  have  it  so.  lience  we  may  regard  every  phenome- 
non, and  especially  the  great  crises,  as  we  call  them, 
of  human  life  and  history,  as  a  divine  judgment.  We 
observe,  and  meditate,  and  reason,  and  form  opinions 
and  rules  of  life;  we  behave  ourselves  in  this  way  or 
that ;  we  acknowledge  God,  or  we  deny  Him ;  we  are 
irreverent  or  devout ;  we  set  before  ourselves  pleasure 
as  the  great  end  of  life,  or  we  recognize  the  infinite 
and  eternal  difference  between  right  and  wrong,  and 
aim  at  an  ideal  perfection.  We  devote  ourselves  to 
money-making,  or  to  science, or  to  art,  or  to  benevo- 
lence, or  to  the  direct  service  of  Almighty  God  ;  and 
something  or  other  comes  of  it.  If  a  whole  nation 
devotes  itself,  almost  exclusively,  to  some  one  particular 
course  of  conduct,  founded  upon  the  growing  and,  at 
last,  widespread  conviction  of  the  truth  of  certain 
doctrines  or  theories,  then  what  comes  of  that  is  a 
peculiar  national  character,  accompanied  by  a  corres- 
ponding happiness  or  misery,  elevation  or  degradation, 
honour  or  infamy,  honesty  or  fraud,  selfish  violence  or 
reverence  for  law,  manly  and  robust  courage  or  imbe- 
cility and  cowardice.  When,  then,  we  consider  the 
actual  condition  of  a  nation,  its  character  and  its  con- 
duct, with  their  corresponding  effects,  we  may  most 


228  THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD. 

confidently  affirm  that,  in  this  vast  and  complicated 
phenomenon,  God  is  declaring  to  us  His  judgment  in 
a  voice  as  loud  and  penetrating  as  that  which  sounded 
forth  from  the  fire  and  darkness  of  Sinai.  He  is 
saying  to  us  :  That  is  what  /  think,  /,  the  Almighty 
God,  about  your  ways  of  living,  and  your  opinions, 
and  your  theories.  I  work  by  laws;  I  leave  you,  for 
the  most  part,  to  reward  or  punish  yourselves.  What- 
soever a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap.  Now 
behold  the  harvest,  and  remember  that  that  is  my 
judgment  of  the  seed,  and  of  the  soil,  and  of  your 
husbandry.  This  judgment  of  mine  is  not  written  in 
a  book;  it  is  open  to  no  sort  of  disputing;  it  depends 
upon  no  minute  criticism,  within  the  reach  only  of 
the  learned,  about  text  or  authorship  or  date.  There 
it  lies,  before  the  face  of  every  human  being,  man, 
woman  and  child,  not  only  plain  to  see,  but  impossible 
to  remain  unseen.  I  have  permitted  you  to  work  out 
your  own  problem,  and  this  is  your  own  solution  of  it. 
And  now,  once  more  I  say  to  you,  not  simply  out  of 
the  Bible,  but  out  of  the  book  of  actual  experience 
and  undeniable  fact :  See,  I  have  set  before  you  this 
day  life  and  good,  and  death  and  evil ;  and  even  yet,  if 
you  will  be  wise  and  consider  your  ways,  it  may  be 
possible  for  you  to  choose  life,  that  loth  you  and  your 
seed  may  live.  This  is  some  part  of  what  God  seems 
to  be  saying  to  us  in  the  demoralization  of  our  country. 
We  must  never  forget  that  our  living  comes  out  of 
our  thinking,  our  conduct  out  of  our  belief.  Sane  men 
— and  mere  wickedness  is  no  proof  of  insanity — do  not 
allow  themselves  to  drift  along  the  stream  of  life; 
they  row,  they  steer,  they  make  for  some  definite 
landing-place;  and  this  purpose  and  effort  of  theirs  is 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD.  229 

the  practical  expression  and  natural  consequence  of 
some  opinion,  conviction,  belief.  They  are  sure  that 
at  that  iDarticular  landing-place  their  business  lies; 
and  that  rowing  and  steering  are  absolutely  necessary, 
if  in  their  boat  they  are  to  come  thither.  Now,  we  all 
perfectly  well  know  what  is  the  Christian  theory  of 
life.  Christianity  teaches  us  that  it  is  absolutely 
necessary  that,  above  all  other  things,  and  at  any  pos- 
sible or  conceivable  cost,  we  must  submit  ourselves  to 
the  holy  will  of  God.  If  we  do  this  we  shall  find  in 
the  very  doing  of  it,  and  in  all  its  consequences,  the 
utmost  blessedness  of  which  human  nature  is  capable. 
We  must  do  this,  moreover,  because  not  only  during 
this  life,  but  also  when  this  life  is  ended,  God  will 
hring  every  loork  into  judgment  and  every  secret  tiling. 
By  a  natural  impulse  of  piety,  and  also  that  we  may 
keep  ever  in  our  minds  our  absolute  dependence  upon 
God,  and  never  for  a  moment  forget  that  we  must 
obey  His  will,  and  do  our  very  utmost  to  ascertain 
what  that  will  is,  we  shall  approach  Him  continually 
in  humble  and  reverent  prayer ;  Ave  shall  lose  no  oppor- 
tunity of  receiving  and  imparting  instruction  as  to 
His  nature  and  His  commandments;  we  shall  make 
our  religion  a  plain  and  palpable  fact,  visible  and 
audible  to  the  eyes  and  ears  of  all  men ;  we  shall  not 
perform  in  a  corner  those  religious  duties  which  are 
essential  to  the  very  life,  not  only  of  ourselves,  but  of 
society  and  all  mankind.  We  shall  unite  ourselves 
with  the  people  of  God ;  we  shall  build  churches,  and 
diligently,  regularly  and  habitually  worship  in  them; 
we  shall  do  everything  that  we  possibly  can  do  to 
enforce  upon  our  only  too  treacherous  memories,  and 
bring  home  to  the  conviction  of  all  around  us,  that 


230  THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD. 

religion  is  the  one  great  fact,  the  one  high  privikge,  the 
one  all-embracing  duty  of  man. 

This  is  the  Christian  theory  of  life  by  which  all 
those  nations  that  we  call  Christian  nations  have  lived 
for  centuries.  Of  course,  men  are  inconsistent ;  they 
are  sometimes  better,  and  very  often  immeasurably 
worse,  than  their  beliefs  or  creeds.  Nevertheless, 
their  very  inconsistencies,  or  at  least  the  consequences 
which  flow  from  them,  will  compel  them  to  realize 
what  their  beliefs  actually  are.  To  act  inconsistently 
with  what  we  do  not  believe  produces,  directly,  no 
effect  upon  us  whatever.  We  are  not  happier,  as  we 
should  be  if  we  had  risen  above  our  creed;  nor  are  we 
more  miserable,  as  we  should  be  if  we  had  fallen  con- 
sciously below  it.  Our  inconsistency  produces  in  us 
neither  shame  nor  remorse,  nor  fear  nor  apprehension. 
Does,  then,  the  inconsistent  conduct  of  Christian  men 
and  women  leave  them  in  this  condition  of  mere  apathy 
and  indifference?  Every  one  of  you  knows  absolutely 
from  your  own  personal  experience  that  it  does  not. 
Sin  you  may,  and  do;  but  you  cannot  sin  without 
shame  and  remorse,  and  a  sure  foreboding  of  a  divine 
judgment,  and  a  massive  and  pervasive  misery  that 
destroys  the  whole  peace  of  your  life.  So  long  as  we 
retain  our  belief  in  the  Christian  theory  of  life,  these 
consequences  will  never  fail  to  flow  from  it;  and  there- 
fore the  Christian  theory  of  life,  in  spite  of  all  our 
inconsistencies,  will  keep  a  firm  hold  upon  us,  will 
check  and  restrain  us  when  we  are  tempted  to  do 
wrong — will,  almost  imperceptibly,  refine  and  elevate 
our  very  ideal  of  living,  and  save  us  from  that  grovel- 
ing baseness  which  is  content  with  a  merely  material 
happiness.     When,  then,  we  see  with  our  own  eyes 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD.  231 

and  know  in  our  innermost  lives  the  rigorous  neces- 
sity which  has  hitherto  bound  together  the  Christian 
theory  of  life  with  the  strongest  incentives  to  virtue 
and  the  most  effective  restraints  upon  vice,  we  might 
well  regard  with  the  very  liveliest  and  most  terrified 
apprehension  any  systematic  and  skilfully-conducted 
attempt  to  destroy  this  Christian  theory,  and  to  sub- 
stitute in  the  place  of  it  a  theory  not  only  different, 
but  its  absolute  and  irreconcilable  contradictory.     If 
the  Christian  theory  of  life  has  tended  to  virtue,  has 
bestowed  upon  man  a  noble  ideal,  has  enabled  him  to 
curb    his    most    impetuous    passions,    has    cultivated 
within  him  all  that  is  sweetest  and  most  gracious  in 
temper  and  feeling,  has  given  him  so  sublime  a  cour- 
age that  he  would  never  hesitate  a  moment,  for  the 
sake  of  the  divine  life  within  him,  to  sacrifice,  if  it 
must  be  so,  even  the  life  of  the  body,  what,  then,  could 
possibly  come  of  it  if  this  theory  should  become  utterly 
repudiated,  if  it  should  be  treated  persistently  with 
arrogant  contempt,  if  men  should  be  induced  to  believe 
that  it  is  an  obsolete  and  mischievous  delusion,  if  they 
could  be  persuaded  that  there  is  no  God,  no  soul,  no 
immortality,  no  judgment  to  come?     What,  I  say, 
could  possibly  come  of  this  but  an  epidemic  of  fraud 
and  vice,  of  brutal  violence  and  abject  cowardice  ? 

And  now  let  me  ask  you  what  is  the  most  popular 
literature  of  the  day,  that  which  is  most  powerfully 
affecting  our  living  and  our  thinking— and  especially 
our  thinking?  Nobody  can  by  any  possibility  be 
in  doubt  as  to  the  answer.  It  is  the  literature  of 
science;  and  this  literature  now  constitutes  a  vast 
library;  it  is  read  by  thousands;  it  is  talked  about  by 
tens  of  thousands;    it  is  copied  into  magazines  and 


232  THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD. 

newspapers;  it  is  the  subject  of  universal  conversa- 
tion; it  is  popularized  in  lectures;  and  in  a  very- 
diluted  form  it  has  filtered  down  through  all  the 
strata  of  society  even  to  the  very  lowest.  And,  more  than 
this — I  had  almost  said  most  of  all — it  is  the  fertile 
mother  of  useful  arts ;  it  has  multiplied  teu  thousand- 
fold the  material  comforts  and  conveniences  of  life. 
On  this  side  it  not  only  seems  to  be,  but  it  is,  a 
brilliant  success;  it  has  more  than  fulfilled  its  most 
dazzling  promises ;  and  so  the  world  compares  it 
scornfully  with  religion  and  with  the  higher  philoso- 
phy. It  is  identified  with  success  and  progress ;  it  is 
supposed  to  deal,  not  with  words,  but  with  things; 
not  with  vague  intuitions,  but  with  demonstrable  laws; 
not  with  another  world,  but  with  the  very  world  we 
live  in;  not  with  philosophical  theories,  but  with 
visible,  audible,  tangible,  ponderable  realities. 

But  I  propose  nothing  so  ludicrously  superfluous  as 
a  laboured  eulogium  of  science,  or  of  the  literature  of 
science.  Much  more  to  the  purpose  will  it  be  to 
remind  you  that  there  is  very  much  in  this  literature 
of  science  which  neither  is  nor  pretends  to  be  scien- 
tific; and  it  is  precisely  this  part  of  that  literature  with 
which  I  am  immediately  concerned.  This  unscientific 
teaching  is  merely  parenthetical  and  irrelevant;  it 
concerns  itself,  not  with  phenomena — which  are  the 
true  and  only  sphere  of  the  physical  sciences — but 
with  those  ultimate  questions  which  belong,  not  to 
physical  science,  but  to  philosophy.  It  matters  nothing 
to  science  whether  or  not  there  may  really  he  an  ex- 
ternal world,  so  long  as  there  seems  to  he  one,  and  so 
long  as  the  endless  series  of  appearances  are  capable  of 
being  arranged  in  a  definite  order  in  time  and  space. 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD.  233 

It  matters  nothing  to  science  whether  or  not  there  may 
have  been  a  primary  canse  of  that  matter  and  force 
which  constitute  the  universe,  so  long  as  the  universe 
itself  exists,  or  seems  to  exist.  It  matters  nothing 
whatever  to  science  whether  or  not  there  may  be, 
behind  the  gray  matter  of  the  brain  and  the  nervous 
ganglia,  and  the  various  tissues  of  which  our  bodily 
organism  is  made  up,  a  mysterious  personality,  a  living 
being  who  can  call  himself  "/,"  and  who  is  conscious 
of  ah  unchanged  identity  in  the  midst  of  all  the  growth 
and  decay  of  his  bodily  structure;  this,  I  say,  matters 
nothing  whatever  so  long  as  the  anatomist,  physiolo- 
gist, or  biologist  can  dissect  the  material  structure, 
and  ascertain  its  modes  of  growth  and  the  functions 
of  its  several  organs.  When,  then,  our  great  leaders 
in  science  discuss  these  mysterious  problems;  Avheu 
they  inquire  about  the  existence  of  God,  or  the  nature 
of  the  soul,  or  the  freedom  of  the  will,  or  the  diflFerence 
between  right  and  wrong,  they  are  then  entering  upon 
speculations  which  are  indeed  profoundly  interesting 
to  all  thoughtful  people.  But  here,  also,  we  must 
never  forget  that  they  are  not  upon  their  own  ground ; 
their  authority  as  skilful  and  wellnigh  infallible  inves- 
tigators of  phenomena  Avill  here  avail  them  absolutely 
nothing.  The  fact  that  they  are  "scientists"  will 
rather  beget  the  suspicion  that  they  may  be  disquali- 
fied for  the  investigations  of  the  metaphysician  or  the 
theologian.  For  the  powers  of  the  human  mind, 
though  indefinite,  are  very  far  from  infinite;  and 
intellectual  operations,  no  less  than  those  which  are 
purely  mechanical,  can  be  performed  successfully  and 
on  a  large  and  thorough  scale  only  by  a  division  of 
labour.     It  is  notorious  that  very  few  persons  indeed 


234  THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD. 

have  attained  to  the  highest  eminence  hotli  in  classics 
and  mathematics ;  and  it  is  very  far  from  being  a  priori 
certain  that  the  man  who  has  a  natural  preference  for 
the  study  of  the  amcebus  will  also  be  in  the  highest 
degree  qualified  for  the  study  of  the  human  mind.  I 
am  not,  therefore,  concerned  with  what  is  purely  scien- 
tific in  the  popular  literature.  I  care  nothing  what- 
ever whether  heat  be  or  be  not  a  mode  of  motion,  and 
whether  or  not  the  various  forces  of  the  universe  be 
inexplicably  interchangeable.  I  am  concerned  only 
with  those  moral,  theological,  philosophical  specula- 
tions which  are  inserted,  as  it  were,  parenthetically  in 
our  books  of  science;  and  I  want  especially  to  impress 
upon  you  the  fact  that  it  is  sheer  delusion  to  suppose 
that  these  speculations  or  theories  derive  the  slightest 
possible  importance  from  the  mere  fiict  that  they  are 
propounded  by  distinguished  men,  whose  authority 
belongs  to  a  very  different,  and  indeed  widely  dis- 
similar, department  of  observation  and  experiment. 

What,  then,  is  the  new  theory  of  life  which  is  to 
supersede  the  Christian,  and  which  obtains  a  delusive 
authority  from  the  fact  that  its  chief  apostles  are  the 
very  men  who,  though  by  no  means  distinguished  as 
theologians  and  metaphysicians,  really  are  and  deserve 
to  be  distinguished  for  attainments  in  a  wholly  differ- 
ent region  of  speculation?  Christianity  affirms  that 
there  is  a  God,  and  that  we  can  and  do  know  Him ; 
the  new  gospel  affirms  that  we  do  not  and  cannot  know 
that  there  is  a  God,  or,  if  there  be  a  God,  know  any- 
thing of  His  nature  and  attributes.  Christianity  affirms 
that  each  human  being  is  a  living  person,  capable  of 
determining  his  own  actions  and  responsible  for  them. 
The  new  gospel  teaches  us  that  our  mental  operations 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD.  235 

— including  love,  hope,  fear,  reverence,  will,  and  the 
like— are  mere  functions  of  the  nervous  system,  depend- 
ing absolutely  upon  our  physical  structure,  coming 
when  it  comes  and  going  when  it  goes.  The  freedom 
of  the  will  is  mere  illusion,  and  would  be  equally  be- 
lieved by  a  tree  or  a  stone  if  only  they  were  possessed 
of  consciousness.  The  ultimate  analysis  of  right  and 
wrong  reduces  them  to  a  particular  kind  of  pleasure 
and  pain.  Inasmuch  as  our  intellectual  and  spiritual 
life  is  a  mere  function  of  the  nervous  system,  which  is 
disintegrated  and  decomposed  at  death,  there  can  be 
no  personal  immortality  and  no  future  judgment.  In 
a  single  sentence,  inverting  a  far  nobler  revelation,  our 
new  evangelists  have  abolished  life  and  brought  death 
and  mortality  to  light  by  science. 

I  do  not  propose  to  argue  the  truth  or  untruth  of 
these  propositions,  though  I  have  not  a  single  atom  of 
doubt  that  they  are  palpably  and  demonstrably  and 
even  absurdly  untrue.  Their  untruth  is  proved  by  a 
mere  inspection — a  careful  and  thorough  inspection — 
of  our  own  experience.  One  of  the  ultimate  postulates 
of  science,  for  instance,  is  the  existence  oi  force.  But 
what  do  we  really  know  of  force  ?  How  could  we 
arrive  at  the  mere  notion  of  force  by  the  observation 
of  phenomena  ?  What  w.e  see  is  change,  not  the  causes 
of  change.  Nevertlieless  we  cannot  help  assuming 
that  every  change  is  brought  about  by  what  we  call  a 
cause,  by  some  manifestation  of  force.  Where  do  we 
get  this  notion  ?  We  get  it  from  the  experience  of  that 
force  which  is  within  us — the  force  which  we  call  our 
will.  We  are  conscious  of  ourselves  exerting  power, 
and  nothing  can  deprive  us  of  that  consciousness. 
The  force  of  Nature  is  a  mere  personification;  the 


236  THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD. 

force  of  will  is  the  ultimate  reality.  So  again  I  am 
perfectly  well  aware  that  what  is  called  Utilitarianism 
has  been  modified  and  refined  until  it  has  contradicted 
itself  into  nothing.  The  older  and  more  consistent 
Utilitarians  admitted  that  the  only  difference  between 
one  pleasure  and  another  is  a  difference  of  quantity. 
Mr,  J.  S.  Mill  insists  upon  a  difference  of  kind.  But 
a  difference  of  kind  involves  the  old  moral  distinctions. 
I  must  be  told  that  /  ouglit  to  prefer  one  kind  of 
pleasure  to  another — general  to  particular,  permanent 
to  transitory,  intellectual  to  animal. 

But,  as  I  said  just  now,  I  am  not  arguing  the  truth 
or  untruth  of  these  propositions.  I  only  want  to 
impress  upon  you  that  they  are  not  only  different  from 
Christianity,  but  wholly  contradictory  and  exclusive 
of  it.  If  I  believe  these  I  must  reject  that — not  in 
petty  details,  not  giving  up  a  miracle  here  and  a 
dogma  there,  but  I  must  reject  it  wholly,  from  bottom 
to  top  and  all  through.  Not  one  single  doctrine  or 
fact  will  be  left,  and  the  whole  superstructure  of  life 
which  I  have  built  upon  the  Christian  theory  must 
utterly  vanish.  Nor  this  only:  it  must  be  superseded 
by  its  exact  opposite. 

And  now  let  us  test  by  these  new  principles  the  con- 
duct of  the  unhappy  cashier  ef  the  National  Bank  of 
New  Jersey.  What  was  to  him  the  greatest  happiness 
of  life  ?  Let  us  assume  that  it  was  to  accumulate  a 
fortune.  To  promote  in  that  way  his  highest  happi- 
ness was  but  the  new  method  of  discharging  his  duty, 
and  that  duty  he  diligently  dischai'ged.  We  may 
imagine  a  moralist  like  Mr.  J.  8.  Mill  expostulating 
with  him,  urging  upon  him  that  the  serenity  of  a  good 
conscience,  and  the  welfare  of  his  neighbours,  and  the 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD.  237 

permanence  of  society,  and  the  stability  of  business, 
were  higher  objects  than  his  own  seltish  enjoyment. 
But  how  superlatively  easy  would  have  been  his  reply ! 
He  would  have  answered :  "  You  are  still  in  the  dark- 
ness and  bondage  of  the  old  superstition.  I  have 
forgotten  what  you  mean  by  the  serenity  of  a  good 
conscience.  I  know  of  no  authority  by  which  I  can 
be  compelled  to  sacrifice  my  own  happiness  to  the 
happiness  of  other  people.  Even  in  mere  quantity  I 
believe  that  I  am  increasing  the  sum  of  general  happi- 
ness by  making  money,  even  though  I  have  to  lie  and 
steal  to  do  it.  I  know  that  it  will  make  ?ne  supremely 
happy,  and  it  will  not  make  supremely  miserable  those 
whom  I  must  plunder.  They  are,  many  of  them, 
what  you  call  good  men.  They  will  regard  their 
losses  as  a  divine  and  merciful  discipline.  They  will 
pray  over  them.  They  will  put  them  to  their  credit 
in  their  account  with  another  world.  Each  one  of 
them  will  lose  a  comparatively  very  small  sum — say  a 
few  hundreds  or  even  thousands  of  dollars:  I  shall 
secure  half  a  million.  Go,  my  good  friend,  and  preach 
to  the  people  who  have  not  thoroughly  studied  your 
own  principles;  I  am  proof  against  fanaticism." 

Or  he  might  have  taken  another  ground.  He  might 
have  said :  "  Why  do  you  expect  me  to  suffer  shame  or 
remorse?  You  know  perfectly  well  that  I  could  not 
avoid  what  I  did.  My  nature  was  born  with  me.  I 
inherited  this  love  of  money,  this  indifierence  to  what 
you  call  honesty.  Moreover,  I  could  not  possibli/  resist 
the  strongest  motive.  Do  you  say  I  ought  to  have  put 
myself  under  different  influences  or  removed  myself 
from  irresistible  temptation?  You  know  you  are 
talking  nonsense.     Hoio  could  I  choose  to  do  what  / 


238  THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD. 

entirely  and  passionatphj  disliked?  My  desires  are  as 
truly  necessary  and  inevitable  as  the  actions  which 
sprins^  ont  of  them." 

And  when  the  dreadful  end  had  come — when  his 
life  was  wrecked  and  his  happiness  departed;  when 
his  frauds  were  detected  and  nothing  lay  before  him 
but  execration  and  the  jail — then  we  may  be  sure  he 
would  know  how  to  apply  the  soothing  doctrines  of  his 
new  religion.  He  had  no  God  to  fear  or  future  judg- 
ment. Life  Avas  no  longer  worth  living ;  why,  then, 
live  on  ?  Why  not  blow  out  the  candle,  and  pass  away 
into  the  utter  nothingness — without  pain  or  memory, 
remorse  or  foreboding — of  everlasting  darkness?  As- 
suredly this  unhappy  self-murderer  was  a  model  saint 
of  the  new  religion  and  church  of  rational  belief. 

You  will  not  imagine  for  a  moment,  my  dear  friends, 
that  I  shall  close  this  discourse  without  a  direct  appeal 
to  your  own  consciences.  I  want  you  to  ask  yourselves 
what  you  are  doing  to  stamp  out  this  epidemic,  to 
protect  yourselves  from  its  infection.  Nay,  rather,  I 
beseech  you  to  ask  yourselves  what  you  are  doing  to 
spread  it  and  to  make  it  more  virulent  and  fatal. 
Believe  me,  the  most  vigorous  seeds  can  only  grow 
luxuriantly  in  a  fertile  and  prepared  soil ;  and  atheism 
and  vice  can  only  grow  luxuriantly  in  a  soil  enriched 
by  the  dead  leaves  of  a  decaying  piety.  I  have  re- 
minded you  what  the  Christian  theory  of  life  really  is. 
Life  must  be  based  upon  religion  and  everywhere 
governed  by  it.  Religion  is  evrrything — everything  of 
privilege  and  of  duty — cverytlii> g  for  the  individual 
and  society.  And  because  it  is  everything  for  society, 
and  we  are  a  part  of  society  and  cannot  stand  alone, 
therefore  we  must  not  only  learn,  but  teach;  not  only 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD.  289 

believe,  but  testify.  We  must  nnite  ourselves  with  the 
people  of  God ;  we  must  build  churches  and  worship 
in  them  ;  our  religion  must  be  a  palpable  and  visible 
reality,  not  only  a  private  devotion,  a  mystic,  hidden 
rapture.  I  shall  say  nothing  of  your  private  godliness, 
of  which  God  only  and  yourselves  can  judge.  But  of 
your  jmhlic  godliness,  your  testifying  to  the  truth,  your 
example  to  others — not  in  commercial  integrity  and 
domestic  affection  and  personal  culture,  but  in  the 
direct  and  open  recognition  of  Almighty  God  by  com- 
mon prayer  and  praise,  by  diligence  in  receiving 
religious  instruction  and  the  public  means  of  grace — 
of  this  everybody  can  judge,  and  everybody  does  judge. 
And  what  is  it  that  the  world  sees  and  says?  The 
very  simplest  and  most  rudimentary  and  easiest  of  our 
public  religious  duties  is  a  regular  attendance  at  the 
house  of  God.  Churches  are  open  every  Sunday — nay, 
every  day  of  the  week — but  in  how  many  places  scarcely 
anybody  can  be  induced  to  enter  them?  Perhaps  on 
Sunday  morning  a  church  may  be  full,  especially  if 
the  music  be  good  and  the  preaching  not  intolerable; 
but  in  the  evening  Christian  men  and  Avomen  are  con- 
spicuously absent.  The  weather  makes  no  difference 
to  merchants  and  clerks,  shopkeepers  and  school- 
teachers, theatres  and  drinking-saloons ;  but  for  hun- 
dreds of  professing  Christians  it  is  nearly  always  either 
too  hot  or  too  cold,  too  dusty  or  too  damp,  to  go  to 
church.  And  what  does  the  world  say  of  it  all  ?  It 
says  that  we  are  miserable  hypocrites  ;  that  we  do  not 
believe  Avhat  we  pretend  to  believe ;  that  our  religion 
is  a  mere  fashion,  one  of  the  proprieties  of  the  set  we 
belong  to.  The  world  says  that  our  religion  is  not  a 
delight,  but  a  dismal  necessity;  not  a  willing  service. 


240  THE  JUDGMENT  OF  GOD. 

but  a  hard  bargain  ;  not  a  food,  but  a  medicine  ;  not  a 
rest,  but  a  fatigue. 

Alas!  it  is  only  too  possible  that  I  am  speaking  to 
you  in  vain — that  you  will  not  heed  me.  You  will 
hear  my  words,  but  you  luiJl  not  do  tliem.  You  will  let 
the  world  go  its  own  way  for  you,  and  the  epidemic 
of  fraud  and  violence  spread,  for  you,  unchecked.  But 
at  least  I  have  done  something  to  unburden  my  own 
conscience.  And  once  again  I  say  to  you  :  See!  I  have 
set  before  you  this  day  life  and  good,  and  death  and  evil; 
wherefore  choose  life,  that  both  you  and  your  seed  may 
live.  The  ivages  of  sin  is  death;  but  the  gift  of  God  is 
eternal  life,  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 


THE  EFFECTS  OF  AN  EXCLUSIVE  OR  DIS- 
PROPORTIONATE STUDY  OP  THE  PHY- 
SICAL SCIENCES  ON  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF.* 

Love  not  the  world,  neither  the  things  that  are  in  the  world. 
If  any  man  love  the  world,  the  love  of  the  Father  is  not  in 
him. — I.  John  ii.  15. t 

I  propose,  in  this  sermon,  to  make  a  special  applica- 
tion of  the  words  of  S.  John  which,  at  first  sight,  may 
seem  to  many  a  little  too  remote.  The  word  here 
translated  world  is  one  which  has  long  since  been 
naturalized  in  the  English  language;  it  is  the  word 
Kosmos.  It  stands,  in  modern  thought,  for  all  the 
phenomena  of  the  universe  regarded  as  a  Avhole; 
capable  of  scientific  arrangement  by  co-ordination  or 
subordination  ;  as  coexistent  in  space  or  successive  in 
time ;  as  invariable  antecedents  or  invariable  conse- 
qnents;  parts  of  an  order  and  capable  of  being 
described  metaphorically  as  subject  to  laws.  This 
meaning  of  the  word  has  not,  indeed,  been  altogether 
stable.  But  in  its  latest  usage  it  would  exclude  any- 
thing which  cannot  be  regarded  as  a  phenomenon  and 
accounted  for  by  an  antecedent,  even  though  such 
things  might  conceivably  or  really  exist  in  the  domain 
of  Being.  It  takes  the  universe  as  already  existing, 
with  its  matter  and  movement ;  and  it  does  not  take 
into  account  any  cause  by  which  that  universe  may 

*  This  sermon  was  not  preached. 

t  M?)  ayanare  rbv  Koafiov  jiride  to.  kv  Tip  Koa/iij.  tdv  rig  ayanq  tov 
Kocffiov,  o'vK  kariv  fj  hyanrj  tov  TraTpbg  ev  avrip. 


242       PHYSICAL   SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF. 

have  been  brought  into  existence,  nor  any  possible 
future  which  may  succeed  when  the  existing  order  of 
Nature  shall  have  come  to  an  end.  It  does  not  deny 
God,  but  omits  Him;  nor  can  it  easily  find  room,  if 
at  all,  for  the  human  will  or  the  human  conscience. 
Unspeakably  beautiful  and  wonderful  it  may  be;  but 
it  is  "  without  father,  without  mother,  without  begin- 
ning of  days  or  end  of  years."  It  is  the  object-matter 
not  of  theology,  or  metaphysics,  or  ethics,  but  of  the 
physical  sciences.  Of  such  a  Kosmos  it  seems  to  me 
emphatically  true  that  "if  any  man,"'  with  an  exclu- 
sive or  disproportionate  affection,  "love  the  world,  the 
love  of  the  Father  is  not  in  him." 

But  there  may  seem  something  of  irreverence  in 
using  a  passage  of  Scripture,  as  we  might  use  a  felici- 
tous quotation  from  Shakespeare,  for  the  purpose  of 
obtaining  a  perhaps  fictitious  sanction  for  our  own 
speculations.  When  we  are  examining  the  words  of 
an  inspired  Apostle,  our  first  object  should  be  to  ascer- 
tain, if  we  can,  their  exact  and  primary  meaning.  That 
meaning,  however,  will  not  simply  be  a  barren  asser- 
tion, a  proposition  or  series  of  propositions  from  which, 
when  combined  with  other  truths,  no  further  inferences 
can  be  drawn..  But  logical  inferences  are  one  thing, 
and  mere  artificial  attachments  are  another.  If,  then, 
we  are  justified  in  affirming  of  the  Kosmos  of  science 
what  S.  John  affirms  of  the  "  world  "  which  he  really 
had  in  his  mind,  we  must  be  able  to  show  that  there 
is  a  real  analogy  between  the  two,  and  that,  by  the 
very  nature  of  the  case,  the  love  of  the  one  will  exclude 
the  "  love  of  the  Father  "  as  really,  and  in  very  much 
the  same  way,  as  the  love  of  the  other.  In  other  words, 
the  legitimate  application  of  the  text  must  be  preceded 


PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF.       243 

by  a  careful  and  accurate  exegesis.  In  this  way,  too, 
we  shall  best  satisfy  the  claims  not  only  of  reverence, 
but  of  logic. 

It  seems,  then,  that  S.  John  has  in  his  mind  those 
three  real  and  distinct  objects  which  are  the  necessary 
conditions  of  all  genuine  religion:  God,  who  is  the 
Object  of  religion ;  the  spirit  of  man,  which  is  its 
subject;  and  the  world,  which  is  at  once  the  sphere  of 
its  operations  and  the  tools  or  implements  by  which  it 
works.  The  first  we  know  by  conscience,  the  second  by 
consciousness,  the  third  by  observation  and  experiment. 
Our  primary  knowledge  of  God  is  complemented  by 
revelation;  of  ourselves  by  philosophy;  of  the  world 
by  scientific  method.  But  the  three  remain  ever  dis- 
tinct; they  are  fundamental  facts  which  cannot  be 
resolved  into  simpler  elements,  or  combined  in  a  higher 
unity.  In  relation  to  God  and  man  the  world  is,  in 
itself,  morally  indifferent,  being  incapable  alike  of 
virtue  or  vice,  right  or  wrong,  order  or  disorder.  It  is 
what  it  was  made.  But  it  has  been  made  so  rich  and 
beautiful,  its  arrangements  are  so  stable  and  trust- 
worthy, its  variety  is  so  incalculable,  that  "  God  saw 
all  that  He  had  made,  and  God  said  it  is  very  good." 
If  we  were  not,  as  we  know  ourselves  in  simple  fact  to 
be,  in  a  condition  of  moral  ^id  spiritual  debasement, 
we  should  inhabit  this  glorious  world  with  innocence, 
and  joy,  and  ever-deepening  gratitude,  as  God's  "  dear 
children."  We  should  never  separate  it  in  our  thoughts 
from  His  generous  love ;  as  it  would  be  the  sphere,  so 
it  would  be  the  perpetual  incentive,  of  our  happy  and 
grateful  service. 

But  that  union  with  God  which  is  the  highest  bless- 
edness for  man  has  been  broken  and  disturbed ;  nay, 


244      PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF. 

SO  serious  is  the  alienation  that  it  seems  to  us,  too 
often,  natural,  nor  wholly  to  be  regretted.  We  rather 
hide  from  God  than  seek  Him;  and,  with  an  awful 
presentiment  that  He  has  abandoned  us  as  we  have 
forsaken  Him,  we  try  to  "  do  without  Him."  We  say, 
"Is  not  our  'Garden  of  Eden'  as  delightful  as  ever, 
though  God  walks  and  talks  with  us  no  more?  Nay, 
left  to  ourselves  and  untroubled  by  the  fear  of  for- 
bidden fruit,  may  we  not  adapt  it  more  completely  to 
our  purpose?"  So  we  look  at  the  world  apart  from 
God,  as  a  property  of  our  own  which  we  may  use 
without  responsibility  and  without  restraint.  By  an 
inevitable  process  of  impiety  we  sooner  or  later  substi- 
tute it  for  God.  Then,  haunted  by  sad  memories  or 
gloomy  forebodings,  we  do  all  we  can  to  exclude  God 
from  it.  We  deliberately  set  ourselves  in  defiance  to 
His  authority,  and  seek  for  happiness  in  reckless  dis- 
obedience and  in  following  "  the  devices  and  desires  of 
our  own  hearts."  Thus  the  very  word  "  world  "  is  a 
condensed  history  of  human  degradation.  It  stands 
first  for  that  orderly  and  beautiful  system  of  Nature 
and  of  human  society  which  God  created  and  ordained 
for  our  use  and  our  enjoyment  and  our  spiritual  per- 
fecting. Then  it  stands  for  that  Nature  and  society 
apart  from  God,  then  alienated  from  Him,  then  hostile 
to  Him.  And  as  hostility  can  exist  only  in  persons, 
and  not  in  the  mere  things  by  which  they  are  sur- 
rounded, the  "world"  comes  to  mean  that  innumer- 
able multitude  of  human  beings  who  love  God  no 
longer,  and  who  order  their  lives  with  no  regard  to 
His  commandments  or  His  will.  God,  indeed,  has  not 
abandoned  those  who  have  forsaken  Him.  Age  after 
age  He  has  sent  them  His  messages  by  lawgivers  and 


PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF.       215 

prophets:  in  "the  fulness  of  the  times"  by  His  "well- 
beloved  Son  ";  since  His  ascension  by  the  Apostles  of 
Christ,  the  "ministers  and  stewards  of  His  mysteries," 
the  "  Holy  Church  throughout  all  the  world."  But 
how  incalculably  remote,  even  now,  seems  the  time 
when  "  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  shall  have  become 
the  kingdom  of  our  God  and  of  His  Christ"!  And  in 
the  days  of  S.  John  how  "little"  must  have  seemed 
"  the  flock  "  which  had  been  gathered  out  of  the  world 
into  the  divine  Family,  "  the  kingdom  of  heaven " ! 
With  scarcely  an  exaggeration  he  could  say:  "We 
know  that  the  whole  world  lieth  in  wickedness";  and 
he  knew  well  how  difficult  it  would  be  to  protect  the 
ransomed  few  from  the  terrible  and  subtle  dangers  by 
which  they  were  surrounded ;  from  the  fascination  of 
external  temptations,  and  the  fickleness  and  treachery 
of  their  own  hearts;  "from  the  crafts  and  assaults  of 
the  devil." 

The  "  world,"  then,  which  S.  John  had  in  his  mind 
was  the  great  world  of  Eome,  with  the  Emperor  as  its 
autocrat  and  the  chief  god  of  its  religion.  Remember- 
ing who  and  what  the  Emperors  were — for  is  it  not 
written  in  the  pages  of  Tacitus  and  Suetonius  ? — such 
a  religion  seems  to  us  so  monstrously  absurd  that,  in 
defiance  of  the  most  conclusive  evidence,  Ave  can  scarcely 
believe  that  it  ever  existed.  But  not  only  were  the 
Emperors  gods  themselves,  but  they  were  able  to  make 
other  gods  and  command  and  secure  their  worship. 
The  foulness  of  Roman  vice,  especially  in  high  places, 
by  its  utter  baseness  baffles  all  description ;  but  1  may 
tell  a  small  part  of  the  story  of  Antinous  from  the  un- 
romantic  and  decorous  prose  of  Smith's  Dictionary: 
"  On  account  of  his  extraordinary  beauty  he  was  taken 


246      PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS   BELIEF, 

by  the  Emperor  Hadrian  to  be  his  page,  and  soon 
became  the  object  of  his  extravagant  affection, 
Hadrian  took  him  with  him  on  all  his  journeys.  It 
was  in  the  course  of  one  of  these  that  he  was  drowned 
in  the  Nile.  It  is  uncertain  whether  his  death  w'as 
accidental,  or  whether  he  threw  himself  into  the 
river,  either  from  disgust  at  the  life  he  led,  or  from  a 
superstitious  belief  that  by  so   doing  he  could  avert 

some  calamity  from  the  Emperor The  grief  of 

the     Emperor    knew    no    bounds He    enrolled 

Antinous  amongst  the  gods,  caused  .temples  to  be 
erected  to  him  in  Egypt  and  Greece,  and  statues  of 
him  to  be  set  up  in  almost  every  part  of  the  world." 
Compared  wath  such  an  apotheosis,  the  worship  of  a 
common  harlot  might  have  boasted  a  kind  of  chaste 
propriety.  But  in  the  worship  of  the  Emperors — dis- 
torted, indeed,  and  even  suicidal  though  it  was — there 
was  yet  one  element  of  nobleness.  It  was  the  expression 
of  the  majesty  of  Rome,  the  sacredness  of  law,  possibly 
also  the  "  solidarity  "  of  those  various  "  nations  and 
kindreds  and  peoples  and  tongues  "  which  the  imperial 
power  had  welded  into  one.  But  the  numerous  other 
religions,  native  and  imported,  which  were  tolerated 
by  Roman  law,  seem  to  have  been  an  unmitigated  and 
incurable  evil.*  The  worship  of  the  Corinthian 
Aphrodite,    for    instance,    was    a    mere    consecrated 

*  The  religion  of  the  Jews,  as  hnown  to  the  Romans,  was 
scarcely  an  exception.  It  was  a  kind  of  magic  united  with 
every  sort  of  mendicancy  and  fraud.   Cf.  Juvenal,  vi.,  542-547  : 

Quum  dedit  ille  locum,  cophino  focnoque  relicto 
Arcanam  ludtea  tremen-?  mendicat  in  aurem, 
Interpres  legum  Solymaruin  et  raag'na  sacerdos 
Arboris  ac  summi  Ada  internuntia  caeli ; 
Implet  et  ilia  manum,  sed  parcius;  fere  minute 
Qualiacunque  voles  ludaei  somnia  vendunt. 


PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF.        247 

harlotry;  and  almost  every  city  was  narcotized  or  in- 
toxicated by  a  not  dissimilar  poison.  Well  indeed 
might  S.  John  say  to  his  "  little  children  "  :  Love  not 
the  luorld,  nor  the  things  that  are  in  the  world.  If  any 
man  love  the  loorld,  the  love  of  the  Father  is  not  in  him. 
Now,  if  this  be  a  true  exposition,  however  brief,  of 
the  words  of  S.  John,  I  think  that  in  applying  them  to 
the  subject  I  have  in  hand  I  am  moving  on  parallel 
lines,  am  justified  by  a  strict  analogy,  am  availing 
myself  of  logical  inferences  which  are  neither  invalid 
nor  too  remote.  For  it  seems  to  me  that  the  progress 
of  modern  science — by  which  hereafter,  in  this  sermon, 
I  shall  mean  physical  science,  as  distinguished  from 
metaphysics,  or  philosophy,  or  theology — has  corre- 
sponded almost  exactly  to  the  moral  development  or 
corruption  of  mankind.  First  of  all,  for  the  purpose 
of  easier  examination,  science  has  investigated  the 
Kosmos  apart  from  God.  And  this  manifestly,  in 
itself,  involves  no  impiety.  The  world  is  what  it  is, 
whoever  made  it,  or  however  it  came  into  existence ; 
and,  in  the  most  religious  spirit,  we  may  try  to  discover 
exactly  what  the  environment  is  in  which  we  are 
placed,  in  order  that  we  may  with  due  humility  accom- 
modate ourselves  to  it,  and  make  the  best  possible  use 
of  it.  But  even  in  this  first  stage  the  study  of  Nature 
(apart  from  God)  must  be  highly  dangerous,  and  may 
easily  be  fatal  to  religious  belief  and  religious  feeling, 
unless  we  combine  with  it  in  a  sufficient  degree  other 
studies  which  do  not  omit  God  from  our  consideration  ; 
and  unless  we  carefully  discharge  the  practical  duties 
of  religion.  To  devote  all  our  best  energies  to  the  dis- 
covery of  what  the  world  is  ivith  God  left  out,  is  the 
most  effective  method  of  forgetting  Him  altogether, 


248       PHYSICAL   SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF. 

and  prepares  ns,  with  the  utmost  ease,  for  the  next 
stage  in  the  progress  of  modern  science. 

That  next  stage  is  the  investigation  of  the  world 
loith  God  excluded.  Science  set  out  upon  lier  path  of 
discovery  inevitably  with  the  traditional  belief  that 
the  phenomena  of  Nature  were  always  beneficently 
superintended  by  a  Divine  Providence,  and  sometimes 
controlled  by  miraculous  interposition.  At  first,  there- 
fore, she  was  timid;  not  alone  because  she  had  to 
encounter  a  universal  prejudice,  but  because  she  her- 
self had  not  wholly  got  rid  of  it.  But  she  gained 
courage  as  she  proceeded.  Investigating  those  phe- 
nomena which  are  given  to  us  by  the  senses,  and 
arranged  and  classified  by  the  intellect — which  is  her 
proper  and  chosen  province — she  was  everywhere  suc- 
cessful. God  is  not  perceived  by  the  senses,  nor  out  of 
sensible  materials  can  the  intellect  construct  Him.  But 
that  ambition  of  the  human  spirit  which  science  affects 
to  deride  can  never  be  really  eradicated.  If  it  be 
checked  or  stopped  on  positive  lines,  it  will  move  with 
restless  energy  on  negative  lines;  if  it  may  not  prove 
that  God  is,  it  will  insist  on  demonstrating  that  He  is 
not.  To  science,  properly  so  called — viz. :  the  methodi- 
cal investigation  of  phenomena  ^jre^ew^eoJ  hy  the  senses 
— Theism  and  Atheism  are  alike  indifferent;  you 
cannot  affirm  what  does  or  does  not  exist  in  that  very 
region  from  which  you  have  deliberately  retired,  and 
which  you  have  deliberately  chosen  to  leave  unexplored. 
But  a  man  does  not  cease  to  be  a  man  because  he 
is  a  student  of  natural  science.  The  thought  of  God 
will  keep  recurring  to  him ;  and  when  it  comes  it  has 
a  kind  of  majesty,  a  loftiness  of  demand,  which  cannot  at 
once  be  set  aside.     Nor  can  it  be  set  aside  at  all,  within 


PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AND  EELIGIOUS  BELIEF.       249 

the  domain  of  science,  by  any  positive  disproof;  the 
utmost  that  can  be  accomplished  is  to  get  rid  of  it  by  a 
long  series  of  exclusions.  The  scientist,*  were  he  ever 
so  well  inclined,  cannot  for  the  life  of  him  discover 
how  to  get  that  God  in  again  whom,  or  which,  he 
deliberately  and  provisionally  left  out  for  the  sake  of 
an  easier  investigation  of  natural  and  sensible  phenom- 
ena. Omitting  the  consideration  of  cause — which,  I 
may  here  remark,  is  a  purely  metaphysical  conception — 
he  has  been  dealing  solely  Avith  invariable  antecedents; 
and  he  has  in  every  case  found  as  many  of  them  as  he 
wants.  Take  the  case,  for  instance,  of  an  abundant 
wheat- harvest.  That  is  a  palpable  physical  fact;  the 
yield  can  be  weighed  and  measured,  and  will  be  found 
so  many  bushels  to  the  acre.  What  are  the  antecedents  ? 
A  well-selected  locality,  with  reasonable  certainty  of 
suflBcient  warmth  and  moisture;  soil  Avell  tilled  and 
richly  manured ;  sound  wheat  for  seed ;  the  ordinary 
operations  of  sowing  and  ingathering.  "Now,  at  what 
stage  of  this  process,"  asks  the  triumphant  or  despair- 
ing scientist,  as  his  mood  may  be,  "  am  I  to  insert  a 
beneficent  Providence,  the  direct  action  of  a  merciful 
God  ?"  Or  take  the  case  of  an  ill-regulated  family. 
They  live  in  an  ill-constructed  house,  and  they  care 
nothing  for  cleanliness  or  ventilation.  They  allow  the 
very  products  of  disease  to  poison  the  water  they  drink, 
or  float  freely  in  the  air  they  breathe.  These  minute 
but  living  organisms — if  that  be  a  true  hypothesis — 
take  possession  of  their  bodies,  and  grow  there  like 
wheat  in  a  field,  only  with  enormously  greater  rapidity 
and  fecundity.     The  family  is  smitten  down  by  disease 

*  I  know  no  substitute,  short  of  a  tedious  circumlocution,  for 
this  detestable  hybrid. 


250       PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS   BELIEF. 

and  most  of  them  die.  Where,  again,  in  this  process, 
are  we  to  insert  a  righteous  and  avenging  God  ?  And 
when  the  theologian  or  the  metaphysician  insists  upon 
His  recognition,  the  scientist  becomes  impatient  and 
exasperated,  and  haughtily  thrusts  Him  out;  for  if  He 
were  admitted  He  would  be  a  new  antecedent  and  must 
certainly  alter  the  resultant  of  all  the  rest.  And,  inas- 
much as  the  very  province  of  science  is  the  phenomenal 
world  and  nothing  else,  he  is  precluded,  as  scientist, 
from  the  assumption  that  the  place  of  God  may  be  at 
the  head  of,  and  outside  of,  the  whole  series  ;  and,  also, 
that  the  processes  of  Nature  may  have  a  moral  pur- 
pose. For  morality,  right  and  wrong,  are  not  within 
the  scope  of  physics :  they  cannot  be  weighed  and 
measured,  or  in  any  other  way,  by  means  of  the  intellect 
making  use  of  the  materials  furnished  by  the  senses, 
scientifically  verified.  Surely,  even  at  this  stage,  it 
must  be  said  of  the  scientist,  as  scientist,  that  "  the  love 
of  the  Father  is  not  in  him."  The  very  conception  of 
a  "Father"  has  been  obliterated,  or  is  resented  as  an 
unnecessary  and  impertinent  intrusion. 

And  now  I  come  to  the  third  stage  in  the  progress 
of  modern  science  in  relation  to  religious  belief.  At 
this  stage  those  faculties  of  human  beings  which  were 
set  aside  as  useless  for  merely  scientific  investigation — 
viz.,  conscience  and  will — demand  to  be  reinstated,  or 
at  least  to  be  recognized,  and  if  possible  exjjlained. 
Nay,  even  the  senses  and  the  intellect  insist  upon  being 
accounted  for.  The  hungry  vacuum  left  by  the  exclu- 
sion of  God  can  no  longer  be  allowed  to  remain  unfilled. 
Science,  therefore,  must  include  its  oivn  insti'iiments 
among  the  phenomena  to  be  investigated,  and  thus 
deprive  itself  of  the  very  means  by  which  its  investiga- 


PHYSICAL   SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS   BELIEF.       251 

tions  can  be  carried  on.     It  must  fill  up  the  clamorous 
vacuum  by  its  own  products.     It  becomes,  therefore, 
anthropomorphic:    it  invests  its  own    generalizations 
with  personality ;  it  fills  up  the  enormous  gaps  in  its 
verified  discoveries  with  bold  hypotheses.    This  is  the 
third  and  last  stage  of  science,  and  also  its  Nemesis. 
For,  under  the  disguise  of  science,  it  has  reinstated— 
though  in  a  mutilated,  self-contradictory,  and  practi- 
cally worthless  form— those  very  conceptions  which  it 
had  passionately  affirmed  were  based  upon  transparent 
and  discreditable   fallacies.     The   three   stages,  then, 
of  the  progress  of  science  in  relation  to  religious  belief 
are  these:  The  investigation  of  Nature, /n^;?!,  with  God 
left  Old;  second,  with  God  excluded;  third,  with  the 
place  of  God  occupied  hy  anthroponiorpJiic  persoyiifca- 
tions  and  unverifiable  hypotheses.     Of  this  last  stage 
the  recent  work  of   Dr.   Henry  Maudsley,   entitled 
Natural  Causes  and  Supernatural  Seemitigs,  is,  so  far 
as  my  reading  in  that  direction  extends,  the  most  con- 
spicuous and  complete  illustration.     It  is  now  a  good 
many  years  since  I  read  Mr.  Tyndall's  treatise  on  Heat 
as  a  Mode  of  Motion.     I  was  not  then,  and  I  am  not 
now,  in  the  least  able  to  criticise  the  wonderful  series 
of  observations  and  deductions  by  which  he  believes 
that  he  makes  good  his  position.     I  have  neither  the 
scientific  imagination  to  devise,  nor  the  dexterity  to 
perform,  bis  very  delicate  experiments.     I  should  go 
to  Mr.  Tyndall,  on  such  subjects,  as  a  very  humble 
learner  to  an  undisputed  master  and  authority.     But 
in  dealing  with  motion  and  heat  he  is  dealing  with 
facts  which  are  revealed  to  us  by  the  senses,  and  to 
those  facts  alone  he  applies,  for  their  arrangement  and 
interpretation,  his  acute  and  penetrating  intellect.     I 


252       PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AND  EELIGIOUS  BELIEF. 

do  not  remember  in  his  book  any  parenthetic  excur- 
sions into  the  realm  of  theology  or  metaphysics.  It 
left,  therefore,  on  my  mind  the  impression  of  a  purely 
scientific  treatise  of  the  very  highest  excellence,  and 
belonging  to  what  I  have  called  the  first  stage  in  the 
progress  of  science — the  study  of  Nature  with  God  left 
out.  And,  I  may  add,  in  such  a  discussion  the  intro- 
duction of  theology  would  have  been  absurdly  irrelevant. 
On  the  other  hand,  his  famous  Belfast  Address  leaves 
on  my  mind  a  very  different  impression.  He  explicitly 
repudiates  Atheism ;  but  that  brilliant  address  seems  to 
me  a  conspicuous  illustration  of  science  in  its  second 
stage — the  study  of  Nature  toith  God  exchided.  I 
derive,  I  think,  the  same  impression  from  Mr.  Huxley's 
Lay  Sermon  on  The  Physical  Basis  of  Life. 

The  effect  upon  religious  feeling  and  belief  of  a 
disproportionate  study  of  the  physical  sciences  is,  per- 
haps, even  more  disastrous  upon  those  who  study 
science  as  an  amusement  or  fashion  than  upon  pro- 
fessional scientists.  For,  though  the  former  may  be 
supposed  to  be  less  exclusive  in  their  pursuit  of  science, 
and  to  have  a  larger  number  of  moderating  and 
neutralizing  mental  occupations,  the  fact  is  that  they 
are  generally  incapable  of  serious  and  rigorous  study  of 
any  kind  whatever.  They  get  their  science  at  second 
or  third  hand,  generally  in  a  greatly  diluted  form. 
For  want  of  the  truly  scientific  temper  their  conclu- 
sions and  assumptions  are  incalculably  more  rash  than 
those  of  the  truly  competent  and  accomplished  investi- 
gators of  Nature.  Moreover,  the  books  they  read,  even 
though  written  by  men  of  acknowledged  scientific 
authority,  are  the  books  they  have  written  in  their 
capacity  not  so  much  of  scientists  as  of  men  of  letters. 


PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF.       253 

Such  books  are  the  proper  vehicles  of  mere  (and 
acknowledged)  hypotheses;  of  comparison  between 
physical  science  and  other  branches  of  knowledge  ;  of 
tentative  suggestions,  and  the  like.  But  the  un- 
practised and  unscientific  reader  never  observes  these 
distinctions.  He  does  not  reflect  that  Tyndall,  writing 
a  treatise  on  Heat  as  a  Mode  of  Motion  (which  the  sci- 
entific amateur  would  probably  have  no  patience  to 
read),  is  a  scientist  with  an  admirably  lucid  style  and 
faculty  of  description ;  but  that  Tyndall,  writing  the 
Belfast  Address,  is  a  man  of  letters  dealing  with  the 
history  of  science,  with  the  opinions  of  Heraclitus  and 
Plato  and  Aristotle  and  Epicurus  and  Lucretius  ;  and 
with  philosophical  theories,  such  as  Materialism  and 
Atheism — all  which  subjects,  so  treated,  lie  entirely 
outside  of  the  domain  which  has  been  deliberately 
selected  for  the  investigations  of  physical  science, 
properly  so  called.  Hence  the  amateur  gets  all  the 
disadvantages  and  none  of  the  advantages — such  as  a 
rigorous  and  almost  ascetic  mental  training  in  at  least 
one  direction — which  genuine  scientific  research  may 
be  trusted  to  secure. 

At  any  rate,  whatever  may  be  the  cause,  we  find  our- 
selves in  a  position  closely  resembling  that— only  far 
more  serious — which  Bishop  Butler  describes  in  his 
Advertisement  to  the  Analogy.  He  knew,  not  from 
guess  or  mere  assumption,  but  from  personal  experience, 
the  attitude  of  society  in  his  day  towards  the  Christian 
religion.  I  am  now  quoting  from  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold's 
characteristic  essay  on  Bishojj  Butler  and  the  Zeit-Geist 
(pp.  251-252,  Macmillan's  Edition  of  1883): 

Society  was  full  of  discussions  about  religion,  of  objections  to 
eternal  punishment  as  inconsistent  with  the  divine  goodness, 


254      PHYSICAL   SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF. 

and  to  a  system  of  future  rewards  as  subversive  of  a  disinter- 
ested love  of  virtue.  "  The  deistical  writers,"  says  Mr.  Pattison, 
"formed  the  atmosphere  which  educated  people  breathed.  The 
objections  the  Analogy  meets  are  not  new  and  unreasoned  objec- 
tions, but  such  as  had  worn  well,  and  had  borne  the  rub  of 
controversy,  because  they  were  genuine.  It  was  in  society,  and 
not  in  his  study,  that  Butler  had  learned  the  weight  of  the 
deistical  arguments." 

And  in  a  further  sentence  Mr.  Pattison,  in  my  opinion,  has 
almost  certainly  put  his  finger  on  the  very  determining  cause  of 
the  Analogy^s  existence :  "At  the  Queen's  philosophical  parties, 
where  these  topics  (the deistical  objections)  were  canvassed  with 
earnestness  and  freedom,  Butler  must  often  have  felt  the  impo- 
tence of  reply  in  detail,  and  seen,  as  he  says,  'how  impossible 
it  must  be,  in  a  cursory  conversation,  to  unite  all  into  one 
argument,  and  represent  it  as  it  ought  to  be.' ''' 

This  connecting  of  the  Analogy  with  the  Queen's  philosophical 
parties  seems  to  me  an  idea  inspired  by  true  critical  genius. 
The  parties  given  by  Queen  Caroline — a  clever  and  strong- 
minded  woman — the  recluse  and  grave  Butler  had,  as  her  Clerk 
of  the  Closet,  to  attend  regularly.  Discussion  was  free  at  them, 
and  there  Butler  no  doubt  heard  in  abundance  the  talk  of  what 
is  well  described  as  the  "  loose  kind  of  deism  which  was  the  then 
tone  of  fashionable  circles." 

The  Analogy,  with  its  peculiar  strain  and  temper,  is  the 
result.  "Caviling  and  objecting  upon  any  subject  is  much 
easier  than  clearing  up  difficulties;  and  this  last  part  will 
always  be  put  upon  the  defenders  of  religion."  Surely  that 
must  be  a  reminiscence  of  the  "  loose  kind  of  deism  "  and  of  its 
maintainers ! 

With  this  in  our  minds  let  us  hear  Butler  himself: 
"It  is  come,  I  know  not  how,  to  be  taken  for  granted, 
by  many  persons,  that  Christianity  [in  our  case 
Theism]  is  not  so  much  as  a  subject  of  inquiry;  but 
that  it  is  now  at  length  discovered  to  be  fictitious. 
And  accordingly  they  treat  it  as  if,  in  the  present  age, 
this  were  an  agreed  point  among  all  people  of  discern- 


PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF.       255 

ment,  and  nothing  remained  but  to  set  it  np  as  a 
principal  subject  of  mirth  and  ridicule,  as  it  were  by 
way  of  reprisals  for  its  having  so  long  interrupted  the 
pleasures  of  the  world." 

This  is  exactly  where  we  are  now,  excepting — and 
how  enormous  is  the  exception ! — that  it  is  not  the 
Christian  religion,  but  any  religion,  not  the  God  of  the 
Bible,  but  any  conceivable  God,  which  popular  litera- 
ture and  conversation,  in  certain  strata,  now  regard 
as  too  entirely  ridiculous  to  be  even  seriously  argued. 
The  clergy  are  supposed  to  be  timid  and  sensitive, 
even  hypersesthetic,  so  I  will  justify  my  own  impres- 
sion by  references  to  a  book  which  some  of  my  "scien- 
tific" friends  assure  me  is  "very  strong,"  and  some 
of  my  "orthodox"  friends  assure  me — meaning  the 
same  thing — is  "very  dangerous":  I  mean  Dr.  Henry 
Maudsley's  book  entitled  Natural  Causes  and  Super- 
natural Seemings.*  The  very  title  of  the  book  is  a 
kind  of  cynical  assumption  that  all  believers  in  the 
supernatural — that  is  to  say,  in  anything  which  is  not 
first  given  to  us  by  the  senses — are  misled  by  mere 
"seeming."  Let  it  be  remembered  that  the  super- 
natural includes  Almighty  God,  and  all  the  special  facts 
upon  which  the  Christian  religion  is  based.  If  it  could 
be  disjjroved,  there  is  an  end  of  all  religious  controversy; 
and  a  serious  attempt  at  disjiroof  might  be  tolerated, 
or  even  in  a  measure  admired,  as  a  rare  instance  of 
intellectual  courage.  Those  who  think  that  a  belief 
in  the  supernatural  has  done  far  more  harm  than  good 
to  the  human  race,  are  justified  in  trying  to  relieve 
mankind  from  an  intolerable  burden.  Those  who 
think  that  it  has  done  far  more  good  than  harm,  and, 

*  See  Supplementary  Note  No.  2  at  the  eucl  of  this  vohime. 


256       PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF. 

in  the  case  of  its  most  conspicuous  example,  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  is  doing  more  good  now,  might  perhaps 
have  been  justified  in  letting  it  alone;  though  there 
may  be  a  kind  of  quasi-virtue  in  sacrificing  the  well- 
being  of  humanity  to  scientific  consistency.  But  the 
condition  in  which  we  now  find  ourselves  is  that  we  have 
to  deal,  not  with  sober  argument,  but  with  undisguised 
contempt. 

This  is  the  way,  for  instance,  in  which  Dr.  Maudsley 
states  what   he   calls  "  the   argument "  of  his   book 

referred  to  above : 

• 

How  is  it  that  mankind,  in  different  ages  and  places,  from 
their  beginning  until  now,  have  had  so  many  different  notions 
concerning  the  supernatural,  if  there  be  a  supernatural  with 
which  they  can  come  into  relations  of  knowledge  and  feeling  ? 
How  is  it  that  they  have  had  any  notions  at  all  concerning  it,  if 
there  be  no  such  accessible  supernatural  ?  Those  who  believe 
confidently  that  there  is  not,  or  that  in  any  case  we  cannot  know 
anything  about  it,  ought  to  show  how  it  has  come  to  pass  that 
people  everywhere,  savage,  barbarous,  and  cultured,  have  been 
impelled  to  construct  it  in  the  forms  in  which  they  have  con- 
structed it ;  a  plain  scientific  obligation  lies  on  them  to  explain 
the  natural  origin  of  human  belief  respecting  that  which  is 
beyond  the  reach  of  human  thought. 

And  then  he  proceeds : 

It  will  not  be  amiss  to  inquire  and  examine  how  far  the  causes 
of  beliefs  in  the  supernatural,  and  of  the  sundry  and  diverse 
notions  that  have  been  entertained  concerning  it  in  different 
times  and  places,  can  be  identified  with  causes  which  are  habitu- 
ally working  in  human  thought  now,  and  which  were  more 
largely  operative  in  its  more  primitive  stages  of  development. 
These  causes  may  be  classed  as  follows  : 

I.  Causes  which  lie  in  the  natural  operations  of  the  sound 
mind ;  of  which  two  principal  divisions  may  properly  be  made 
— namely  : 


PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF.       257 

1.  The  natural  defects  and  errors  of  human  observation  and 
reasoning. 

2.  The  proliQc  activity  of  the  imagination,  always  eager  and 
pleased  to  exercise  itself.  For  it  ought  to  be  well  considered  in 
this  relation  that,  while  the  exercise  of  observation  and  reasoning 
is  slow,  toilsome,  and  difficult,  the  exercise  of  imagination  is 
quick,  easy,  and  pleasant ;  and  how  largely,  therefore,  the 
scanty  supplies  of  the  former  are  immediately  supplemented  by 
the  lavish  profusions  of  the  latter. 

II.  Causes  which  lie  in  the  operations  of  the  unsound  mind, 
and  which  fall  naturally  under  the  two  principal  headings  of — 

1.  Hallucinations  and  illusions. 

2.  Mania  and  delusions. 

III.  Causes  which  lie  in  the  adoption  of  ecstatic  illumination 
or  intuition  as  a  special  channel  of  supernatural  knowledge. 

Now,  it  is  perfectly  obvious,  from  this  statement,  that 
Dr.  Maudsley  regards  the  belief  in  the  supernatural  as 
too  absurd  to  deserve  serious  argument  of  any  kind. 
He  regards  it  as  a  curious  phenomenon  in  the  history  of 
human  development.  He  accounts  for  it,  in  all  cases, 
by  the  assumption  of  "defects  and  errors  of  human 
observation  and  reasoning";  by  an  illicit  use  of  the 
imagination ;  by  unsoundness  or  disease  of  the  mind, 
indicated  by  hallucinations  and  maniacal  delusions;  by 
the  voluntary  production  of  abnormal  excitement,  such 
as  ecstasy,  trance,  convulsions  and  the  like.  He  lumps 
together  all  the  absurdities  and  superstitions  of  savages, 
the  supposed  visions  and  revelations  of  Apostles  and 
Saints,  of  Mohammed  and  Sweden borg,  the  miracles  of 
our  Lord,  the  supposed  cures  of  medicine-men,  the 
tricks  of  jugglers,  omens,  lucky  and  unlucky  days, 
witches  and  witchcraft,  as  equal  and  parallel  expres- 
sions of  a  belief  in  the  supernatural.  He  says,  in  effect, 
"  I  can  account  for  one  after  another  of  these  by  obvious 
physical  or  moral  causes,  chiefly  disease  and  fraud ;  it 


258      PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF. 

is  not  necessary  to  go  throngh  the  whole  list  of  these 
absnrcl  beliefs,  for  that  would  require  almost  as  long  a 
time  as  was  required  for  their  actual  development  and 
history.  But  the  specimens  I  shall  select  will  be 
enough  to  indicate  a  principle.  And  it  may  be  worth 
while  to  assist  Avell-meaning  fanatics  to  anticipate,  by 
a  voluntary  surrender,  the  inevitable  hour  when  science 
will  deprive  them,  whether  they  will  or  no,  of  the  very 
last  atom  of  their  confidence  in  God  and  religion." 
To  be  sure,  he  omits  the  crucial  instances  of  what  all 
Christians  believe  to  be  supernatural — the  life  and 
teaching  of  our  Blessed  Lord  and  of  S.  Paul ;  and  this 
omission,  though  entirely  fatal  to  his  so-called  "argu- 
ment " — for  he  cannot  account  for  the  work  either  of 
Christ  or  S.  Paul  by  unsoundness  of  mind,  or  mania, 
or  fraud — we  may  charitably  explain  as  a  survival, 
however  sickly  and  atrophied,  of  natural  piety. 

Now,  in  any  case  it  is  highly  desirable,  for  clearness 
and  accuracy  of  thought,  and  it  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary, in  consideration  of  the  controversies  in  which  we 
find  ourselves  engaged,  that  we  should  accurately 
determine  what  science  really  is ;  that  is  to  say,  what 
is  its  true  and  chosen  domain,  what  are  its  instru- 
ments, and  what  is  its  method.  For  science  is  the 
court,  so  to  speak,  before  which  we  are  so  often  brought, 
charged  with  serious  crimes,  and  weighted  with  a  well- 
deserved  or  ill-deserved  very  bad  reputation.  It  is 
absolutely  necessary  for  us,  then,  to  be  accurately 
informed  as  to  the  jurisdiction  of  this  court  and  its 
modes  of  procedure.  Now,  the  chosen  do7nam  of 
science  is  2y^"^^iovicna  cognizable  by  the  senses.  The 
instruinents  of  science  are  the  senses  and  the  intellect, 
and  these  only;  for  in  an  investigation  of  a  sensible 


PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF.       259 

phenomenon  there  is  no  question  of  right  or  wrong, 
and  emotion  is  scientifically  mere  surplusage,  and 
generally  a  very  disturbing  cause  of  deflection  or 
friction.  The  method  of  science  is  observation,  and 
that  trained  observation  which  we  call  experiment ; 
and  the  logical  processes  of  induction  and  deduction, 
which  are  founded  upon  what  are  called  the  laws  of 
thought,  the  modes  in  which  the  human  mind  has  been 
found  to  proceed  in  the  discovery  of  truth. 

If  this  be  a  true  account  of  science — meaning,  of 
course,  physical  science — it  is  obvious  that  any  ques- 
tion of  the  supernatural  is  wholly  outside  its  domain, 
incapable  of  being  solved  by  its  instruments,  and 
wholly  alien  from  its  methods.  Let  us  consider  these 
two  propositions:  "The  will  is  self-determining,"  and 
"In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heavens  and  the 
earth."  How  can  science  affirm  or  deny  either  of 
these  propositions?  The  will  is  not  cognizable  by  the 
senses ;  and  any  being  who  existed  before  the  heavens 
and  the  earth,  and  what  He  did  or  omitted  to  do 
before  the  Creation,  or  at  the  moment  and  in  the  act 
of  creation,  lie  wholly  outside  of  the  domain  of  science. 
To  ask,  then,  for  a  scientific  demonstration,  properly 
so  called,  of  the  existence  of  God  or  of  His  attributes, 
is  irrelevant  and  absurd.  No  doubt  Christians  believe 
in  a  God,  that  He  created  the  world,  that  He  sustains 
it,  that  "in  Him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being,"  that  without  Him  the  vast  and  complicated 
machinery  of  Nature  would  crash  into  chaos  or  vanish 
into  nothing.  These  beliefs  may  be  abundantly  justi- 
fied. But  they  have  nothing  to  do,  either  way,  with 
science,  which  never  legitimately  can  go  beyond  sen- 
sible jihenomena  as  they  are,  whether  to  speculate  how 


260       PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF. 

they  came  into  existence,  or  what  would  follow  if  they 
should  cease  to  be.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are 
questions  which  do  legitimately  belong  to  science — 
both  to  its  domain,  its  instruments  and  its  method — 
even  though  they  may,  directly  or  indirectly,  concern 
our  religious  feeling  and  belief.  All  such  questions 
are  really  determinable  by  Science,  and  her  answer  is 
conclusive  and  without  appeal.  Consider  the  follow- 
ing propositions:  "The  world  has  not  existed  more 
than  six  thousand  years";  "The  earth  is  an  immovable 
sphere,  and  the  sun  and  other  heavenly  bodies  revolve 
around  it";  "Voluntary  movements  of  the  limbs  can 
be  performed  without  a  brain  ";  "  It  is  impossible  that 
there  should  be  inhabited  antipodes."  These  propo- 
sitions might  be  found  anywhere — in  the  Bible  (I  do 
not  mean  that  they  are  found  tliere)  or  in  the  ravings 
of  a  maniac;  but  ivherever  found  they  are  clearly 
within  the  province  of  science,  and  can  be  solved  by 
its  materials,  its  instruments,  and  its  methods;  and 
the  solution  of  science  is  conclusive  and  without 
appeal.  The  real  solution  in  the  cases  named  above 
I  believe  to  be  this:  The  world  is  incalculably  older 
than  six  thousand  years ;  the  earth  is  not  an  immov- 
able sphere;  the  voluntary  motion  of  an  arm  is  impos- 
sible without  a  brain ;  there  do  really  exist  inhabited 
antipodes.  I  believe  these  propositions  have  been 
conclusively  proved,  whatever  their  effect  may  be, 
direct  or  indirect,  upon  our  religious  feelings  and 
beliefs  ;  and  I  believe  also  that  that  effect  is  nil. 

The  depressing  effect,  therefore,  of  science  upon 
religious  belief  and  feeling  is  not  due  to  science  itself, 
properly  so  called,  but  partly  to  the  intellectual  arro- 
gance   and    haughty,  extra-scientific  assumptions  of 


PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF.       261 

scientists  when  they  write  or  speak,  not  as  scientists, 
but  as  metaphysicians  or  theologians,  or  men  of  letters 
— with  a  well-deserved  but  wholly  iri-elevant  reputation 
derived  from  their  scientific  attainments;  and  partly 
from  our  own  pusillanimity  and  disregard  of  the  ac- 
knowledged and  chosen  limitations  of  the  domain  of 
science — chosen  not  by  theologians,  but  by  scientists 
themselves.  Our  proper  course  is  to  deny  "  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  thecourt,"  What  is  the  use  of  attempting  to  prove 
the  existence  of  an  object  not  cognizable  by  the  senses, 
in  a  domain  from  which  all  such  objects  have  been,  for 
purposes  of  convenience  and  a  fruitful  "division  of 
labour,"  most  rigorously  excluded ;  and  to  prove  it  by 
the  senses  f^  We  must  habitually  recognize  the  exceed- 
ingly limited  extent  of  the  domain  of  science  compared 
with  the  whole  domain  of  Being.  And  we  must  remind 
scientists  and  ourselves— who  need  the  reminder  far 
more  seriously — that  the  very  limitation  of  the  domain  of 
science  is  not  rmZand  actual,  but  only  provisional  and 
theoretical ;  just  as  a  physiologist,  for  the  better  study 
of  the  human  eye,  might  divert  his  attention  from  the 
alimentary  and  reproductive  organs,  though  they  are 
still  there,  and  are  so  organically  related  to  the  eye 
that  any  very  serious  disturbance  in  them  would  be  the 
destruction  of  it.  We  should  remind  Science,  moreover, 
that  even  within  her  own  chosen  and  limited  domain 
she  could  not  stir  a  step — could  not  even  choose  and 
limit  her  province — without  instruments  and  assump- 
tions of  which  she  herself,  as  Science,  can  give  no 
account  whatever.  These  are,  for  instance,  the  senses, 
the  intellect,  the  trustworthiness  of  consciousness,  the 
veracity  of  memory,  the  validity  of  logical  processes. 
Let  us  begin,  then,  with  the  senses,  and  with  the 


262       PHYSICAL    SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF. 

noblest  of  them  all — the  sense  of  sight.  It  may  very 
safely  be  affirmed  that  Science,  confining  herself  rigor- 
ously to  her  own  domain — objects  cognizable  by  the 
senses — can  no  more  demonstrate  the  existence  of  the 
sense  of  sight  than  she  can  demonstrate  the  existence 
of  God.  It  may  be  urged  that  we  can  prove  the  exist- 
ence of  the  sense  of  sight  by  using  it;  which  seems 
like  saying  that  we  can  demonstrate  the  existence  of 
God  by  praying  to  Him.  But  Science  is  far  too  exact, 
dogmatic,  and  exacting  to  set  about  the  using  of  any- 
thing—  unless  by  absolute  compulsion — the  very  exist- 
ence of  which  is  still,  for  her,  unproved  and  unprovable. 
It  is  this  very  folly  with  which  she  is  forever  taunting 
theologians  and  metaphysicians.  Now,  how  can  Science 
by  any  conceivable  means  prove  the  existence  of  the  sense 
of  sight?  Do  you  say  by  examining  an  eye?  But 
how  can  she  examine  an  eye  without  seeing  it  ?  If  she 
could  horroio  for  the  purpose  an  eye  loith  a  hiiman 
7nind,  so  to  speak,  lehhul  it,  she  certainly  might  exam- 
ine the  visible  phenomena  of  any  number  of  other 
eyes.  But  an  eye  is  not  the  sense  of  sight:  it  is  only  the 
organ  of  that  sense,  and  does  not  contain  it,  or  explain 
it,  or  suggest  it.  We  may  examine  an  eye  from  the 
outside,  we  may  look  at  it  more  closely  by  means  of  an 
ophthalmoscope,  we  may  take  it  out  of  the  socket  and 
dissect  it.  But,  do  what  we  will,  we  never  get  to  the 
sense  of  sight  itself.  If  there  were  anybody  behind 
looking  through  it,  he  might  perhaps  understand  that 
the  eye  is  a  singularly  beautiful  optical  instrument; 
but  what  is  the  precise  relation  of  the  nerves  of  the  eye 
to  vision,  and  why  the  same  purpose  should  not  be 
answered  by  the  nerves  of  the  little  toe,  we  know  no 
more  than   an  Indian   savage;  and  there   is  not  the 


PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF.       263 

slightest  reason  to  suppose  that  by  physical  investiga- 
tion we  ever  shall  know.  And  exactly  the  same  may 
be  said — mutatis  mutandis — of  every  other  sense.  Not 
one  of  them  is  itself  cognizable  by  the  senses.  They  must 
all  be  assumed  by  Science;  and  in  accepting  the  use  of 
them  she  acknowledges  that  her  chosen  domain  of 
inquiry  and  investigation  is  very  far  from  being  con- 
terminous with  the  whole  domain  of  Being. 

But,  if  this  be  true,  how  enormous  are  the  conse- 
quences !  For  here  is  one  wJioIe  region  of  mind  excluded 
from  the  domain  of  physical  science,  and  yet  recog- 
nized as  existing  and  real,  and,  in  fact,  standing  in  no 
need  of  scientific  demonstration.  Not  only  does  it  need 
no  scientific  demonstration  itself,  but  its  reality  must 
be  assumed  in  every  process  of  scientific  demonstration 
of  anything  else  whatever.  And  if  this  be  true  of  the 
senses,  much  more  obviously  true  is  it  of  the  intellect 
— that  purely  mental  faculty  by  which,  receiving  the 
reports  of  the  senses,  we  arrange,  abstract,  generalize, 
mark  relations  of  coexistence  or  succession.  And, 
again,  of  our  emotions — love,  hate,  terror,  cheerfulness, 
and  the  like.  And,  again,  of  conscience.  And,  again, 
of  that  lordly  will  which  chooses  what  course  to  pur- 
sue, and  after  firm  resolves  issues  irresistible  commands. 
But  this  is  the  ivhole  of  the  human  mind.  If  we  do  not 
know  mind  in  itself,  in  its  substance,  we  know  it  by 
its  properties  or  operations.  Mind  is  that  which  has 
sensations,  thoughts,  emotions,  resolves,  the  sense  of 
right  and  wrong.  Not  one  of  these  properties  or 
operations  is  cognizable  by  the  senses.  Not  one  of 
them,  therefore,  is  within  the  domain  of  Science.  This 
is  manifest  on  what  1  may  call  simple  inspection.  It  is 
proved  collaterally  by  the  action  of  Science  herself  when, 


264-       PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF. 

stepping  outside  of  her  proper  province,  she  undertakes 
to  deal  with  purely  mental  problems.  The  very  first  thing 
she  does,  in  carrying  out  that  vain  endeavour,  is  to 
remove  the  very  problem  itself  and  substitute  another 
in  its  place.  For  siglit  she  substitutes  the  eye  ;  for  intel- 
lect, the  brain ;  for  the  luill,  sensory  and  motor  nerves. 
Need  we,  then,  be  so  very  much  alarmed  when  Science, 
with  a  voice  a  little  too  rudely  loud  and  truculent, 
tries  to  frighten  us  by  the  assurance  that  she,  after  all 
her  researches,  knows  nothing  of  God'^  The  answer  is 
obvious :  "  Who  expects  you  to  know  anything  about 
God  when  you  manifestly  know  nothing  about  me  f 

I  might  pursue  the  same  line  of  argument  in  relation 
to  the  otherabsolutely  necessary  ass?«?i;:)^to«s  of  science 
— viz. :  the  trustworthiness  of  consciousness,  and  the 
veracity  of  memory,  and  the  validity  of  logical  processes. 
Without  these  assumptions  not  one  single  step  can  be 
taken  in  the  direction  of  physical  discovery — whether 
it  be  the  discovery  of  the  structure  and  habits  of  earth- 
worms, or  the  discovery  of  the  next  appearance  of  a 
particular  comet.  Now,  these  are  jj'^^^^^^'^V  tfuths, 
admitted  as  such  by  science;  unless  science  is  to  be 
self-confessed  a  mere  pretentious  clieat.  And  "  primary 
truths" — I  am  quoting  a  work  which  it  is  impossible 
to  study  too  carefully,  and  which  is  one  of  the  most 
valuable  contributions  to  modern  philosophy — viz.: 
Dr.  W.  G.  Ward's  Philosophy  of  Theism  (i.  5-6)— 
"primary truthsconsistoftwoclasses — viz.:  (1)  primary 
premises,  and  (3)  the  validity  of  one  or  more  inferring 
])rocesses.  We  may  add  that  the  cognition  of  a  primary 
truth  as  such  is  precisely  what  is  called  an  '  intuition.' 
If  these  primary  truths  are  guaranteed  with  certitude 
— but  not  otherwise — there  is  a  stable  foundation  of 


PHYSICAL   SCIENCE   AND  RELIGIOUS   BELIEF.       265 

human  knowledge  in  its  entireness  and  totality.  The 
inquiry,  then,  to  be  instituted  is  this :  Firstly,  what 
character  I  sties  must  be  possessed  by  those  trutlis  which 
the  thinker  may  legitimately  accept  as  primary?  And 
secondly,  on  lohat  ground  does  he  know  that  the  prop- 
ositions are  true  which  jMSsess  those  characteristics? 
Or,  to  express  the  same  thing  in  [other]  words,  firstly, 
what  is  the  rule  of  certitude  ?  and  secondly,  what  is 
its  motive  f  1.  Primary  truths  are  those  which  the 
human  intellect  is  necessitated  by  its  constitution  to 
accept  with  certitude,  not  as  inferences  from  other 
truths,  but  on  their  own  evidence ;  this  is  the  rule  of 
certitude;  2.  These  truths  are  known  to  be  truths, 
because  a  created  gift  called  the  light  of  reason  is  pos- 
sessed by  the  soul  whereby  every  man,  while  exercising 
his  cognitive  faculties  according  to  their  intrinsic  laws, 
is  rendered  infallibly  certain  that  their  avouchments 
correspond  with  objective  truth ;  this  is  the  jnotive  of 
certitude." 

I  have  neither  space  nor,  unhappily,  the  ability  to 
follow  out  the  argument  I  have  suggested  in  this 
sermon  through  all  its  ramifications.  But  in  these 
dark  and  evil  days,  if  we  would  strengthen  our  own 
faith  and  strengthen  the  faith,  or  prevent  the  apostasy, 
of  others,  we  shall  not,  I  think,  much  trouble  ourselves 
with  peddling  arguments  to  prove  the  "scientific 
accuracy "  of  the  book  Genesis.  We  shall  waste  not 
an  hour  in  trying  to  solve  the  difficulties  of  a  piously- 
minded  ship-carpenter  who  cannot  understand  the 
description  of  the  structure  or  see  the  sea-going  suffi- 
ciency of  Noah's  Ark.  The  question  to-day  is  not, 
How  long  did  the  creation  of  the  world  occupy?  nor, 
How  far  did  the  Deluge  extend  ?     The  question  is  this  : 


266       PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF, 

Is  there  a  living  God  ?  Is  there  a  human  spirit  ?  And 
if  we  wonld  answer  this  question,  I  think  we  cannot 
do  better  than  follow,  at  however  humble  a  distance, 
the  example  of  the  illustrious  author  of  The  Analogy. 
He  had  to  deal  with  gay  and  flippant  sceptics,  who, 
professing  to  believe  in  "Natural"  Eeligion,  rejected 
"  Eevealed."  For  them,  and  such  as  they,  his  argument 
was  and  is  conclusive,  needing  no  change  in  its  general 
principles,  and  next  to  none  even  in  its  minutest  details. 
It  may  well  be  doubted  whether  any  of  those  whom  he 
met  at  the  Queen's  receptions  were  serious  enough  to 
read  his  book ;  but  it  was  written  not  for  them  only, 
but  for  all  time.  Our  work,  at  least  in  form,  is  differ- 
ent from  his.  We  have  to  deal  with  sceptics,  often 
also  idle  and  flippant,  who  reject  both  Natural  and 
Eevealed  Eeligion,  but  profess  to  "believe  in"  science; 
and  to  accept  those  primary  truths  upon  which  science 
rests,  and  without  which  science  must  be  forever 
impotent.  Our  task,  then,  it  seems  to  me,  is  to  show, 
"  whether  men  will  hear  or  whether  they  will  forbear," 
that  those  primary  truths  will  lead  us  much  further 
than  science ;  will  compel  us  to  accept  religion  and  to 
believe  in  God.  And  when  we  believe  in  God,  Butler 
will  show  us  how  inevitably  we  must  accept  His 
revelations.  But  alas!  No  danger  can  be  more  seri- 
ous than  the  habit  of  regarding  religion  as  an  open 
question,  needing  at  this  time  of  day  to  be  elaborately 
argued.  Our  only  safeguard  will  be  to  get  away  as 
often  as  possible  from  that  narrow  region  in  which  noth- 
ing is  to  be  found  but  objects  cognizable  by  the  senses. 
We  shall  know  far  more  of  the  human  mind  and  of 
the  capabilities  of  genius  by  studying  Hamlet,  than 
by  dissecting  brains.     Let  us  associate  with  the  noble 


PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGIOUS   BELIEF.       267 

men  of  all  times,  and  imitate  their  noble  deeds.  And, 
after  all,  dealing  so  largely  as  we  must  with  "  the 
world  and  the  things  that  are  in  the  world,"  I  am  sure 
that  we  shall  find  our  best,  and  only  complete,  protec- 
tion in  the  practice  of  religion,  in  the  word  of  God,  in 
the  Holy  Sacraments,  in  the  ever-repeated  prayer  of 
our  earliest  childhood,  "  Our  Father  which  art  in 
Heaven." 


SELF-DELUSION. 

But  after  certain  days  Felix  came  -with  Drnsilla,  his  wife, 
which  was  a  Jewess,  and  sent  for  Paul,  and  heard  him  con- 
cerning the  faith  in  Christ  Jesus.  And  as  he  reasoned  of 
righteousness,  and  self-control,  atid  the  judgment  to  come,  Felix 
was  terrified,  and  answered,  Go  thy  way  for  this  time ;  and 
when  I  have  a  convenient  season  I  will  call  thee  unto  me.  He 
hoped  withal  that  money  would  he  given  him  of  Paul :  tvherefore 
also  he  sent  for  him  the  oftener,  and  communed  with  him.  But 
when  two  years  were  fulfilled,  Felix  was  succeeded  by  Porcius 
Festus:  and  desiring  to  gain  favotir  ivith  the  Jews,  Felix  left 
Paul  in  bonds. — Acts  xxiv.  24-27. 

The  narrative  of  which  these  words  are  a  part,  and 
which  we  have  already  read  together  in  the  Second 
Lesson  for  this  morning's  service,*  is  an  example  of 
that  marvellous  power  of  self-deception  which  is  one 
of  the  commonest,  not  to  say  one  of  the  universal, 
frailties  of  human  nature.  We  observe  it  every  day  of 
our  lives  in  everybody  with  whom  we  are  in  the  least 
degree  intimate.  It  takes  the  most  various,  and  some- 
times the  most  grotesque,  forms.  It  might  not  be 
considered  surprising  that  a  man  should  fail  to  per- 
ceive his  most  secret  peculiarities  or  most  venial  sins. 
But  we  meet  with  people  continually  who  are  utterly 
blind  to  their  most  obvious  absurdities.  To  take,  for 
example,  what  may  be  regarded  as  a  foible  rather  than 
a  vice: — what  is  more  common  than  to  find  a  man 
notorious  for  his  egotism  not  only  wholly  unconscious 

"■'■Preached  on  the  ninth  Sund.ay  after  Trinity,  1886. 


SELF-DELUSION.  269 

of  his  own  infirmity,  but  contemptnously  sarcastic 
when  he  observes  the  same  infirmity  in  another  ?  "  My 
neighbour,"  he  says,  "  can  never  talk  about  anybody 
but  himself;  he  can  never  look  at  any  subject  but  as 
it  concerns  his  own  interests;  he  has  no  sympathy 
with  otlier  people's  troubles  or  successes ;  he  invaria- 
bly comes  round,  after  a  few  complimentary  sentences, 
or  a  brief  interval  of  uninterested  silence,  to  'number 
one.'  "  And  yet  this  very  man  is  the  derision  of  }iis 
neighbours  for  the  very  same  ridiculous  and  offensive 
peculiarity.  And  what  toe  can  see  in  everybody  else, 
everybody  else  can  see  in  us.  We  are  all  deluding  our- 
selves— unconsciously  and  consciously— by  simulation 
and  dissimulation ;  by  pretending  to  be  what  we  are 
not,  and  by  pretending  not  to  be  what  we  are.  And  this 
self-delusion  is  not  only  a  superficial  varnish :  it  goes 
to  the  very  bottom  of  our  characters ;  it  easily  be- 
comes transmuted  into  sheer  hypocrisy;  we  not  only 
disguise  ourselves  before  men,  but  we  "  lie  to  the  Holy 
Ghost." 

Therefore  it  is  that  Holy  Scripture  warns  us,  both 
by  precept  and  example,  against  this  most  serious 
danger  of  self-delusion.  "  Who  can  tell,"  says  the 
Psalmist,  "  how  oft  he  ofiendeth  ?  Cleanse  Thou  me 
from  secret  faults."  "  Surely,"  says  Elihu,  in  the 
book  Job — misapplying,  indeed,  a  perfectly  true  princi- 
ple— "  surely  it  is  meet  to  be  said  unto  God,  What  I 
know  not  teach  Thou  me :  if  I  have  done  iniquity  I 
will  do  it  no  more."  "  He  that  trusteth  in  his  own 
heart,"  says  Solomon,  "  is  a  fool."  "  The  heart,"  says 
one  of  the  prophets,  "  is  deceitful  above  all  things,  and 
desperately  wicked."  And  again  :  "  Woe  unto  them 
that  call  evil  good  and  good  evil,  that  put  darkness 


270  SELF-DELUSION. 

for  light  and  light  for  darkness,  bitter  for  sweet  and 
sweet  for  bitter!"  And  this  same  propensity  to  self- 
delusion  is  set  before  us  not  only  in  warnings  and  pre- 
cept, but  in  conspicuous  and  most  instructive  exam- 
ples. Three  of  these  it  may  be  profitable  for  us  to 
consider  somewhat  more  at  length.  The  first  is  the 
example  of  Balaam,  whose  history  we  shall  be  reading 
in  the  First  Lessons  for  this  evening  and  next  Sunday. 
Tlie  second  is  the  example  of  David.  The  third  is  the 
example  of  Felix. 

There  are  few  narratives  in  the  Old  Testament  more 
picturesque  and  dramatic  than  the  history  of  Balaam.* 

*  It  may  well  seem  that  any  commentary  on  this  remarkable 
history  must  be  superfluous  after  the  sermons  of  Butler, 
Newman  and  Arnold,  and  after  the  graphic  pages  of  Stanley 
in  his  History  of  the,  Jewish  Church.  It  would,  however,  be 
very  rash  for  any  clergyman  to  take  for  granted  that  any  large 
proportion  of  his  congregation  have  read  any  of  these  sermons, 
though  they  are  of  the  utmost  value,  and  Butler's  has  a  rank 
which  may  be  truly  called  classic.  Newman's  also  is  a  perfect 
model,  not  only  of  exposition,  but  of  spiritual  insight  {Paro- 
chial and  Plain  Sermons,  II.,  pp.  18  et  seqq.,  1877).  What  is 
the  irresistible  fascination  of  Newman's  Sermons  ?  Perhaps 
their  perfect  simplicity,  the  utter  absence  of  anything  distantly 
approaching  affectation.  "We  preach  not  ourselves."  His 
one  object  is  always  to  bring  home  to  the  conscience  the  precise 
lesson  of  Almighty  God.  Nobody  but  a  scholar  could  have 
written  such  sermons  as  his,  but  they  are  absolutely  without 
pedantry  or  display  of  any  kind.  Again,  how  pregnant  are 
many  of  Newman's  almost  parenthetic  suggestions,  which  are 
at  the  same  time  so  perfectly  appropriate  to  the  matter  he  has 
in  hand !  Here  is  one  in  the  very  sermon  about  Balaam : 
"  And  here  I  would  make  a  remark:  that  when  a  passage  of 
Scripture,  descriptive  of  God's  dealings  with  men,  is  obscure 
or  perplexing,  it  is  as  well  to  ask  ourselves  whether  this  may 


SELF-DELUSION.  271 

How  shall  I  describe  him  ?  Soothsayer,  worker  of 
charms  and  spells,  inspired  prophet,  recipient  of  reve- 
lations from  the  God  of  Israel — all  these  he  was. 
"His   home   is   beyond  the   Euphrates,  amongst  the 

not  be  owing  to  some  insensibility,  in  ourselves  or  in  our  age,  to 
certain  peculiarities  of  the  divine  law  or  government  therein 
involved"  (p.  27).  Stanley  remarks  on  the  history  of  Balaam, 
more  sno  (p.  210,  Scribner's  Edition,  1876)  :  "  In  his  career  is 
seen  that  recognition  of  dinne  inspiration  outside  the  chosen 
people  which  tlie  narrowness  of  modern  times  has  been  so 
eager  to  deny,  but  which  the  Scriptures  are  always  ready  to 
acknowledge,  and,  by  acknowledging,  admit  within  the  pile  of 
the  teachers  of  the  Universal  Church,  the  higher  spirits  of  every 
age  and  of  every  nation."  I  have  ventured  to  describe  this  as 
in  Stanley's  peculiar  manner;  by  which  I  mean  to  imply 
generosity,  keen  appreciation  of  the  value  of  truth,  wherever 
found,  and  also  a  considerable  admixture  of  speculative  rash- 
ness. No  doubt  the  Scriptures  do  acknowledge  certain  revela- 
tions outside  the  chosen  people  to  be  divine  ;  but  they  make  that 
acknowledgment  on  a  perfectly  definite  principle,  and  with  what 
I  may  call  a  very  guarded  parsimony.  The  principle  is  this  : 
any  direct  communication  from  God  to  man  of  what  he  could 
not  otherwise  have  discovered  is  recognized  as  a  divine  revela- 
tion ;  mere  discoveries  or  speculations  are  not  so  regarded. 
Thus  we  might,  on  this  principle,  admit  that  the  philosophy  of 
Plato  was  a  divine  revelation,  if  he  did  not  (apart  from  other 
objections)  himself  represent  it  as  the  result  of  his  own  careful 
inquiry  and  introspection :  inquiry  into  the  opinions  of  earlier 
thinkers,  and  careful  scrutiny  of  the  processes  of  his  own 
intellect.  But  the  revelation  given  to  Balaam,  and  recognized 
in  Scripture  as  divine,  will  enable  us,  better  than  whole  pages 
of  mere  argument,  to  perceive  the  distinction  between  revela- 
tion inside  and  revelation  outside  the  chosen  people.  Regarded 
w  itself,  it  was  one  of  a  number  of  sporadic  revelations ;  not 
forming  part  of  a  connected  wliole  ;  not  preserved  by  any  pro- 
tective envelope  ;  not  embodied  and  propagated  in  any  cultus , 
or  laws,  or  social  institutions.     It  was  in  itself,   therefore, 


272  SELF-DELUSIOl^. 

moniitains  where  the  vast  streams  of  Mesopotamia  have 
their  rise.  But  his  fame  is  known  across  the  Assyrian 
desert,  tliroiigh  the  Arabian  tribes,  down  to  the  very 
shores  of  the  Dead  Sea.  He  ranks  as  a  warrior  chief 
(by  that  combination  of  soldier  and  prophet ....  seen 
in  Moses  himself)  with  the  five  kings  of  Midian.  He 
is  regarded  throughout  the  whole  of  the  East  as  a 
prophet  whose  blessing  or  whose  curse  was  irresistible, 
the  rival,  the  possible  conqueror,  of  Moses."*  As  we 
read  the  graphic  narrative  in  Numhers,  we  forget  long 
distances  and  the  slowness  of  travel.  As  compared 
with  Balak,  Balaam  is  as  Jacob  to  Esau ;  intellect 

highly  ineifective  ;  it  had  no  permanent  effect  even  on  Balaam  ; 
it  did  no  good  whatever  to  Balak  ;  it  died  without  issue  ;  it  led 
to  nothing.  It  was,  indeed,  a  divine  revelation,  and  of  very 
great  intrinsic  value.  It  was  a  prophecy,  a  distinct  foretelling, 
of  a  whole  sei'ies  of  events  which  took  place  long  afterwards. 
It  included,  especially  as  reported  by  the  prophet  Micah,  the 
fundamental  principle  of  all  religion.  But  it  is  available  for 
all  mankind  precisely  for  this  reason  :  it  was  hxowghi  within  the 
methodical  and  continuous  series  of  revelations  granted  to  the 
chosen  people  ;  it  was  recorded  in  their  Sacred  Books  ;  it  had 
its  place  assigned  to  it  in  a  whole  system  of  truth.  No  doubt 
its  recognition  in  Scripture  as  divine  would  include,  by  parity 
of  reasoning,  all  other  revelations  of  the  same  kind  and  similarly 
treated.  If,  for  instance,  by  an  impossible  liypothesis,  the 
really  true  portions  of  the  Buddhist  "Scriptures"  had  been 
imbedded  in  the  Old  Testament,  fitted  into  their  place  in  the 
series  of  revealed  truths,  and  the  like,  they  would  have  been 
"acknowledged";  only,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  were  not. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  words  "  We  are  also  His  offspring  "  are 
accepted  by  S.  Paul  as  true  ;  though  it  may  certainly  be  more 
than  doubted  whether  he  would  have  accepted  them  as,  in  any 
peciiliar  and  authoritative  sense,  a  divine  revelation.  It  was  a 
true  saying  of  "  one  of  your  own  poets." 
*  Stanley. 


SELF-DELUSION.  273 

against  brute  force;  spirit  against  matter;  insiglit 
against  impulse.  He  knew  perfectly  well  that  his 
enormous  reputation  had  no  solid  foundation ;  he 
could  not  bless  or  curse  at  his  own  discretion ;  his 
power  was  not  over  facts,  much  less  over  God,  but  only 
over  the  imaginations  of  men ;  and  that  power  it  is 
scarcely  possible  to  overestimate.  Moreover,  he  has  a 
kind  of  conscientiousness — nay,  a  high  principle.  He 
dare  not  promise  more  than  he  can  perform.  He 
must,  at  all  cost,  serve  God ;  but  he  will  make  the  cost 
as  little  as  possible.  He  has  "  obedience  without  love."* 
So,  when  the  messengers  of  Balak  come  to  call  him, 
"  with  the  rewards  of  divination  in  their  hands,"  he 
will  obey  God  if  he  must,  and  so  far  as  he  must,  but 
not  otherwise  nor  farther.  He  loves  the  rewards  of 
divination,  he  fears  the  divine  vengeance. 

But,  to  begin  with,  he  is  "  a  man  of  prayer" — not  in 
a  merely  formal  way,  but  in  reality.  And  here  we  may 
note  the  first  of  his  self-delusions  :  he  deceived  himself 
as  to  the  very  nature  of  prayer.  Deceived  himself  for 
we  all  know  what  prayer  is  not :  it  is  not  the  power  to 
change  the  divine  purpose,  or  make  things  other  than 
they  really  are.  Thus  much  it  is  on  the  very  face  of  the 
narrative  that  Balaam  knew.  "  This  is  the  boldness," 
says  S.  John,t  "which  we  have  towards  God,  that,  if 
we  ask  anything  according  to  His  will,  He  heareth  us : 
and  if  we  know  that  He  heareth  us  whatsoever  we 
ask,  we  know  that  we  have  the  petitions  which  we 
have  asked  of  Him."  Prayer,  then,  is  founded  upon 
our  knowledge  of  God  and  trust  in  Him ;  it  consists  in 
putting  ourselves  into  harmony  with  His  will ;  it  is 
always  answered,  even  wlien  it  seems  to  be  denied;  it 

*  Newman.  tl-  John  v.  14-15. 


274  SELF-DELUSION. 

may  be  almost  said  to  be  most  effective  when  it  is  most 
superfluous ;  its  power  is  subjective  possibly  more  than 
objective;  but  it  is  objective  also,  because  God  has 
made  acts  of  faith  and  actual  requests  the  conditions 
of  His  blessings;  as  also,  without  faith  and  prayer,  our 
own  spiritual  perfection  would  be  impossible.  Nothing, 
therefore  (I  may  remark  parenthetically),  could  have 
been  more  absurd  than  the  proposal  of  a  distinguished 
scientist  to  test  the  value  of  prayer  by  putting  it  to  a 
work  which,  by  its  very  nature,  it  is  precluded  from 
attempting.  We  all  hnoio  that  it  is  not  "according  to 
God's  will "  that  everybody  should,  in  every  case,  be 
cured  of  a  grievous  sickness.  We  all  hnoiv  that  to  use 
prayer  for  the  purpose  of  putting  the  Almighty  on  His 
trial — if  we  may  so  speak  with  reverence — is  not  prayer 
at  all,  but  mere  blasphemy.  Balaam,  then,  chose, 
against  his  knowledge  and  better  judgment,  to  regard 
prayer  as  a  means  of  constraining  God  to  change  His 
mind.  If  He  would  not  change  His  mind,  Balaam  must 
submit  to  the  divine  will ;  but  at  least  he  could  try  the 
experiment,  and  he  thought  he  had  succeeded. 

At  first,  indeed,  the  answer  of  God  was  to  Balaam's 
own  mind  perfectly  unmistakable  and  conclusive: 
"Thou  shalt  not  go  with  them;  thou  shalt  not  curse 
the  people,  for  they  are  blessed."  Surely  there  was 
nothing  more  to  be  said;  he  might  not  go,  and  if  he 
did  go  he  was  powerless.  "  God  is  not  a  man,  that  He 
should  lie,  nor  the  son  of  man,  that  He  should  repent." 
But  new  messengers  arrive,  with  new  and  larger 
promises,  and  Balaam  prays  once  more.  He  perfectly 
knew  God's  will;  his  own  promised  rewards  were 
nothing  to  the  purpose;  he  had,  in  fact,  made  up  his 
mind  as  to  the  path  of  duty.     But  still  he  would  try 


SELF-DELUSION.  275 

agaift.  If  God  would  give  him  leave  to  go,  he  might 
still  combine  "  the  rewards  of  unrighteousness  "  with 
the  sufficient  recognition  of  the  Righteous  One.  "It 
is  often  said  that  second  thoughts  are  best ;  so  they 
are  in  matters  of  judgment,  but  not  in  matters  of  con- 
science. In  matters  of  duty  first  thoughts  are  com- 
monly best:  they  have  more  in  them  of  the  voice  of 
God."* 

We  all  know  the  sequel.  "  God  came  unto  Balaam 
at  night  and  said  unto  him.  If  the  men  be  come  to 
call  thee,  rise  up  and  go  with  them."  But  "  God's 
anger  was  kindled  "  against  Balaam  "  because  he  went," 
With  what  in  men  might  be  called  disdain,  the 
Almighty  granted  to  him  the  opportunity  of  self- 
destruction,  though  still  withstanding  him  for  his  own 
good.f  "  The  angel  of  the  Lord  placed  liimself  in  the 
way  for  an  adversary  against  him."  "  The  dumb  ass, 
speaking  with  a  man's  voice,  reproved  the  madness  of 
the  prophet."  Yet  when,  having,  as  he  supposed, 
wrung  from  the  Almighty  His  permission  to  do  wrong, 
he  really  came  to  Balak,  he  could  only  utter  the  divine 
message.  He  could  find  no  enchantment  against 
Jacob,  no  divination  against  Israel.  Nay,  he  saw  further 
and  deeper  into  the  future  than  any,  so  far  as  we  know, 
of  his  contemporaries.     He  saw  the  sure  triumph  of 

*  Newman. 

fThis  terrible  power  of  foolish  prayer  did  not  escape  the 
notice  even  of  the  Roman  satirist,  who  closes  his  tenth  Satire 
with  words  that  would  not  be  misbecoming  even  in  the  moutli 
of  a  Christian  (Juvenal,  x.  346-366)  : 

Nil  ergo  optabunt  homines  ?    Si  consilium  vis, 
Permittes  ipsis  expendere  nurainlbus  quid 
Conveniac  nobis  rebusque  sit  utile  nostris. 
Nam  pro  juoundis  optissima  quteque  dabuat  di, 
Carior  est  illis  homo  quam  sibl.  &c. 


276  SELF-DELUSION. 

God's  chosen  people,  "  the  star  coming  forth  out  of 
Jacob,  the  sceptre  rising  out  of  Israel."  He  saw  the 
people  around  him  utterly  subdued.  In  a  far  more 
distant  future  he  saw  that  "ships  should  come  from 
the  coast  of  Kittim,  and  they  should  afflict  Asshur,  and 
should  afflict  Eber,  and  he  also  should  come  to  destruc- 
tion." Yet  he  chose  deliberately  to  be  on  the  losing 
side,  and  himself  perished  in  battle  against  those  whose 
victory  he  had  so  clearly  foreseen. 

Here,  then,  was  a  man  who  was  blessed  in  a  very 
extraordinary  degree  with  every  one  of  those  privileges 
which  might  naturally  be  expected,  and  are  exactly 
adapted,  to  serve  as  a  perfect  protection  and  safe- 
guard against  almost  the  possibility  of  self-delusion. 
He  has  special  revelations  from  God ;  he  has  that 
exaltation  of  intellectual  and  moral  faculties,  that 
keenness  of  insight,  to  which  we  give  the  name  in- 
inspiration;  he  cultivates  the  habit  of  prayer;  and 
he  receives  answers  to  his  prayers  so  perfectly  unmis- 
takable that  they  are  represented  in  the  history  of  his 
life  as  audible  voices— which  is  very  much  more  than 
any  of  ourselves  are  in  the  habit  of  receiving.  And 
yet  he  contrived,  almost  to  the  very  end  of  his  life,  to 
turn  these  very  safeguards  into  the  occasions  of  self- 
deception.  Thus,  for  instance,  the  words  of  God,  "If 
the  men  have  come  to  call  tliee,  go  with  them,"  were 
just  as  audible  to  his  outer  or  inner  ear  as  the  words 
"  Thou  shalt  not  go  with  them."  When,  on  his  very 
journey  to  Balak,  he  said  to  the  Angel  of  the  Lord, 
"If  it  displease  thee  I  will  get  me  back  again,"  the 
reply  was  perfectly  clear:  "  Go  with  the  men,  but  only 
the  word  that  I  shall  speak  unto  thee,  that  shalt  thou 
speak."     Those  words  which  God  gave  to  him  he  really 


SELF-DELUSION.  277 

did  speak ;  and  he  no  doubt  persuaded  himself  that  he 
was  keeping  the  letter  of  the  divine  commandments,  and 
that  he  had  really  persuaded  God  to  sanction  the  road 
which  seemed  to  lead  most  directly  to  his  own  private 
interests.  Of  course  this  self-deception  could  not  last  for- 
ever. Deception,  on  whomsoever  practised,  is  an  attempt 
to  produce  the  belief  that  things  are  not  what  they  really 
are.  But  they  are  what  they  really  are,  whatever  our 
belief  may  be ;  and  when  at  last  we  are  compelled  to 
confront  them,  our  delusions  vanish — and  nearly  always 
too  late — and  we  perish  as  Balaam  perished. 

The  example  of  David  is,  in  some  respects,  even  more 
instructive  than  that  of  Balaam.  In  forming  an  estimate 
of  his  character,  and  of  the  grievous  sin  which  he  com- 
mitted, we  are  nearly  always  misled  by  the  very  com- 
mon error  of  judging  a  man  who  lived  at  a  time  and  in 
social  conditions  very  remote  from  our  own  by  the 
standards  which  we  justly  apply  to  our  own  conduct. 
David  has  long  been  the  scoff  of  shallow  sceptics  who 
entirely,  and  even  stupidly,  forget  that  when  judged  by 
their  own  principles  he  is  scarcely  deserving  of  censure. 
It  may,  in  fact,  be  plausibly  argued  that  he  was  very 
much  above  the  average  of  his  own  contemporaries  in 
virtue  and  magnanimity.  Why  should  he  be  expected 
to  be  so  very  much  farther  in  advance  of  his  own  age 
and  circumstances?  We  condemn  the  sin  of  David 
because  we  believe  those  divine  revelations  which 
shallow  sceptics  despise  so  heartily  that  they  consider 
sober  argument  thrown  away  on  such  puerile  super- 
stitions. If  "God"  be  the  mere  creature  of  a  natural 
inlirmity  of  the  human  intellect,  or  of  the  mythopffiic 
creativeness  of  the  undisciplined  imagination,  what  can 


278  SELF-DELUSION. 

it  matter  whether  David  were,  or  were  not,  a  man 
"after  God's  own  heart"?  It  neither  increases  nor 
diminishes  his  guilt  that  he  was  on  the  whole  approved 
by  a  nonentity.  When  he  himself  was  brought  to 
repentance,  he  was  so  overwhelmed  with  shame  that  his 
whole  life  seemed  to  him  a  mass  of  corruption. 
"  Behold  I  was  shapen  in  iniquity,  and  in  sin  did  my 
mother  conceive  me."  This  was  a  perfectly  true  view 
of  life  for  a  godly  man  to  take;  but  for  our  flippant 
sceptics  it  would  have  been  a  preposterous,  and  even 
impossible,  delusion.  They  would  go,  indeed,  much 
further  than  David — who  is  here  far  too  profoundly 
impressed  with  the  fact  of  his  sinfulness,  all  through 
his  life,  to  be  merely  enunciating  a  dogma  of  "original 
sin " — but  they  would  have  gone  in  the  opposite 
direction.  They  would  have  excused  David  from  all 
responsibility.  The  scientific  dogma  of  original  sin 
differs  from  the  Christian  in  being  far  more  revolting 
to  the  conscience — which  our  modern  science  obliter- 
ates— and  also  wholly  incurable.* 

*'*  Mental  pathologists  would  do  well,  then,  to  begin  their 
treatises  on  insanity  with  a  preliminary  dissertation  on  mental 
malformities,  tracing  each  leading  variety  back  to  its  origin,  and 
following  the  steps  of  its  growth  ;  so  might  they  throw  light  on 
the  ways  by  which  the  various  modes  of  defective  observation 
and  reasoning  that  spring  from  the  biasing  passions  and  tempers 
of  human  nature  shut  it  out  from  thorough  and  veracious  con- 
verse with  facts,  and  grow  from  generation  to  generation  into 
the  structural  outcomes  of  positive  mental  malformity.  The 
brain  is,  as  it  were,  essentially  a  consolidation  of  memories,  and 
these  consolidated  embodiments  of  fallacies  of  thought  and  feel- 
ing might  be  described  justly  as  the  various  spirits  of  error 
made  flesh.  And  if  that  be  their  true  origin  and  organic  mean- 
ing, their  functions  will  naturally  furnish  the  most  striking  dis- 
plays of  these  errors,  the  organ  giving  out  the  kind  of  function 


SELF-DELUSION.  279 

But  let  us  consider  David's  action  apart  from  the 
high  standard  of.  pure  religion  which  was  revealed  to 
Israel  by  Almighty  God,  and  not  least  to  David  him- 
self. He  was  an  Oriental  monarch  who  had  power  of 
life  and  death  over  his  subjects.  Most  unquestionably 
he  was  conspicuous,  on  the  whole,  for  the  righteous- 
ness and  generosity  of  his  rule.  An  Oriental  harem 
produced  no  shock  to  the  morality  of  David's  age;  and 
his  self-restraint  in  this  direction  was  far  more  remark- 
able than  his  self-indulgence.  Probably  no  other 
monarch  would  have  hesitated  a  moment  to  take 
Bathsheba  to  himself  without  any  further  explanation 
than  that  the  king  desired  her.  Moreover,  there  was 
war  actually  going  on,  and  Uriah  the  Hittite  was  as 
liable  to  be  sent  to  a  post  of  peculiar  danger  as  any 
one  else.  I  repeat  that  David's  conduct  is  condemned, 
not  by  the  customs  of  his  age  and  place,  not  by  any 
law  of  "  moral "  evolution  that  fairly  could  be  applied  to 
him,  but  only  by  that  profoundly  spiritual  and  exact- 
ing religion  which  was  the  grand  possession  of  Israel, 
and  which  is  the  scorn  of  modern  sceptics,  who 
hold  up  to  contempt  and  abhorrence  a  man  who,  on 
their  own  principles,  was  deserving  of  the  highest 
honour. 

which  inspired  its  construction.  A  man  could  not  think  or  do 
deceit  habitually  and  naturally  if  his  ancestors  for  years  before 
him  had  not  thought  or  done  deceit,  and  in  the  end  incorporated 
its  spirit  into  the  structure  of  his  brain.  If  they  have  lived  in 
mean  spheres  and  comparatively  simple  social  relations,  where 
there  was  not  much  call  for  self-restraint,  or  need  of  delicacy  of 
feeling,  and  he  is  launched  into  a  larger  human  sphere,  and  into 
more  complex  and  refined  social  relations,  where  self-restraint 
and  respect  for  others  are  required,  then  the  fundamental  faults 
of  his  nature  are  brought  into  obtrusive  exercise  and  conspicu- 
ous display."     (Dr.  Maudsley.) 


280  SELF-DELUSION. 

But  we,  who  believe  the  splendid  series  of  divine 
revelations  recorded  in  the  Jewish  and  Christian 
Scriptures,  have  no  excuse  whatever  for  David's  sin. 
We  do  not  believe  that  he  inherited  lust  and  cruelty, 
and  that  he  could  do  no  otherwise  than  as  his  inherited 
cerebral  or  other  structure  compelled  him.  And  re- 
garding him  as  an  individual,  gifted  with  a  self- 
determining  power  of  will,  with  a  conscience,  with  an 
unusual  spiritual  insight,  with  special  divine  and 
supernatural  revelations,  we  can  only  judge  him  as  he 
judged  himself,  when  he  was  enabled  to  see  himself  as 
he  really  was.  And,  so  judging  him,  he  is  a  conspicu- 
ous example  of  the  power  of  self-delusion.  For  nearly 
a  whole  year  he  does  not  seem  to  have  even  realized 
that  he  was  guilty  of  any  special  sin  whatever.  Nay 
more :  he  was  evidently  far  too  rigorous  in  his  inter- 
pretation of  all  ordinary  moral  obligations.  When  the 
seer  Nathan  came  to  him  with  that  pathetic  parable, 
Avhich  even  as  literature  is  unsurpassed  for  simplicity 
and  patlios,  he  not  only  insists  upon  full  restitution 
for  the  "  little  ewe  lamb,"  but,  with  enormously  ex- 
aggerated indignation,  dooms  the  offender  to  death. 
The  moment  "  Nathan  said  unto  David,  TJiou  art  the 
man,"  his  self-delusion  vanished.  There  was  not  a 
single  excuse  or  explanation  to  be  offered  on  the  subject. 
"And  David  said  unto  Nathan,  I  have  sinned  against  the 
Lord."  That  was  the  exact  truth.  It  is  expressed  more 
emphatically  in  the  words  of  the  Fifty-first  Psalm : 
"  Against  Thee  only  have  I  sinned,  and  done  that 
which  is  evil  in  Thy  sight."  For  it  was  not  evil  in  the 
sight  of  men  in  general,  nor  as  judged  by  the  morality 
of  David's  own  life  and  station.  The  high  spiritual 
judgment  of  David  was  no  evolution  out  of  the  mass 


SELF-DELUSION.  281 

of  public  opinion :  it  was  then,  and  long  afterwards, 
far  in  advance  of  any  popular  sentiment;  it  was  the 
direct  product  of  a  divine  and  supernatural  illumina- 
tion and  revelation.  And  perhaps  the  immediate 
lesson  for  us,  in  this  most  instructive  narrative,  is  that 
we  should  most  carefully  look  for  the  instruments  or 
occasions  of  our  self-delusion  in  our  highest  gifts.  If 
we  be  raised  far  above  others — which  in  our  own  case, 
indeed,  may  very  seldom  happen — in  spiritual  discern- 
ment, we  may  fall  very  far  below  our  own  highest  level 
before  reaching  the  highest  level  of  ordinary  people. 
We  shall  be  inclined  to  measure  ourselves  by  their 
standard  instead  of  oar  own.  We  shall  regard  our 
judgments  of  duty  and  responsibility  not  as  ordinary 
rules  of  life  for  ourselves — which  they  really  are — but 
as  "  counsels  of  perfection."  Everybody  is  morally 
bound  to  live  at  the  highest  moral  level  possible  for 
himself,  whatever  may,  or  may  not,  be  possible  to 
other  people.  David  was  very  far  in  advance  of  popu- 
lar moral  sentiment;  but  he  was  not,  and  could  not 
be,  in  advance  of  his  oion  moral  sentiment. 

And  here  it  may  be  well  to  remark  upon  the  extreme 
unwisdom  of  applying  abstract  principles,  even  of 
morals,  to  concrete  cases,  without  the  utmost  possible 
caution.  We  arrive  at  abstract  principles  by  leaving 
out  of  consideration  the  individual  peculiarities  of  any 
separate  case  to  which  they  are  to  be  ultimately 
applied.  But  the  individual  j^ecuUarities  are  of  the 
very  essence  of  the  case  upon  which  we  are  to  pro- 
novince — if  that  lies  within  our  province — a  moral 
judgment.  Take,  for  instance,  the  case  of  David. 
It  seems  easy  enough  to  include  it  in  some  such 
syllogism  as  this :     Murder  and  adultery  are  the  worst 


282  SELF-DELUSION. 

of  crimes ;  anybody  guilty  of  the  worst  of  crimes  is 
capable  of  any  smaller  crimes  ;  therefore  David  (being 
guilty  of  murder  and  adultery)  was  capable  of  any 
other  crime — in  other  words,  was  an  utterly  worthless 
reprobate.  This  conclusion  is  manifestly  upset  by 
the  plain  fact  that  David  Avas  not  capable  of  stealing 
the  "  little  ewe  lamb."  Indeed,  all  these  abstract, 
general  principles  assume  that  human  beings  are 
logically  consistent,  both  in  thought  and  act;  whereas 
everybody  knows  that  they  are  as  far  as  possible  from 
logical  consistency  in  any  direction  whatever.  More- 
over, the  very  terms  of  this  syllogism  are  open  to  ques- 
tion. Is  it  "  murder  "  for  the  general  of  an  army  to 
send  men  to  a  post  of  peculiar  danger  ?  Is  it "  adultery  " 
to  take,  an  additional  wife  in  a  state  of  society  in 
which  polygamy  is  recognized  as  lawful  ?  Is  "  murder  " 
morally  worse  than  gossiping  away  a  man's  reputa- 
tion ?  Is  "  adultery,"  followed  by  steady  conjugal 
fidelity,  morally  worse  than  the  all  but  universal  forni- 
cation which  in  our  great  cities  is  the  despair  of 
priests,  and  which  is  deliberately  recommended,  in  the 
present  condition  of  society,  by  not  a  few  physicians  ? 
Nay  more,  it  is  obvious  that  what  seem,  at  first  sight, 
exaggerations  of  criminality,  may  be  really  "extenua- 
ting circumstances."  S.  Peter  denied  our  Lord  "with 
oaths  and  curses."  Who  can  doubt  that  the  oaths  and 
curses  were  a  proof  of  the  extreme  difficulty  of  his  sin  ? 
He  could  not  deny  his  Lord  at  all  until  he  had  put 
forth  an  effort  which  carried  him /a?'  heyond  his  inten- 
tion. He  had  to  bring  himself  to  oaths  and  cursing 
before  he  could  deny  at  all ;  and  even  then,  when  Jesus 
looked  upon  him,  "  he  went  out  and  wept  bitterly." 


SELF-DELUSION.  283 

The  example  of  Felix  is,  in  some  respects,  even  more 
instructive  than  either  of  those  I  have  already  con- 
sidered. It  is  on  a  much  lower  and  more  vulgar 
level;  and  that,  alas!  is  more  nearly  our  own  level. 
He  does  not  care  for  the  formal  accuracy  of  his  conduct, 
like  Balaam,  much  less  does  he  possess  the  inward  piety 
of  David.  He  has  a  certain  general  knowledge  of  truth 
and  duty ;  a  personal  interest  in  the  right  which  some- 
times becomes  dominant  in  his  feelings,  if  not  supreme; 
but  he  is  perfectly  determined  to  make  the  best  of  this 
world,  and  his  self-deception  is  of  such  unstable  equi- 
librium that  it  is  forever  on  the  verge  of  being  trans- 
muted into  sheer  hypocrisy. 

When  S.  Paul,  was  brought  before  him  he  was 
Procurator  of  Judaea.  Tacitus,  in  a  single  sentence 
which  every  commentator  qiiotes,  holds  him  up  to 
infamy  as  one  who,  "  indulging  in  every  kind  of 
brutality  and  lust,  exercised  the  power  of  a  king  with 
the  spirit  of  a  slave."*  He  had  been  an  Arcadian 
slave,  and  owed  his  elevation  to  the  Procuratorship 
largely  to  the  influence  of  Jonathan,  one  of  the  ex- 
high-priests  of  the  house  of  Annas.  This  very 
Jonathan  was,  by  the  treachery  of  Felix,  stabbed  to 
death  at  one  of  the  yearly  feasts.  The  administration 
of  the  Procurator  had  not  been  without  its  merits :  he 
had  suppressed  dangerous  banditti,  if  he  had  also 
shared  their  spoils.  The  Jews,  moreover,  almost 
equally  from  their  virtues  and  their  vices,  were  very 
hard  to  rule. 

It  was  before  this  man,  then,  that  S.  Paul  was  sum- 
moned to  plead  his  cause.     He  had  been  sent  to  him 

*  Tacitus,  Hist.,  v.  9  :  "  Antonius  Felix,  per  omnem  sajvitiara 
et  libidinem,  jus  regium  servili  ingenio  exercuit." 


284  SELF-DELUSION. 

by  Claudius  Lysias,  with  a  summary  statement  of  the 
criminal  charges  brought  against  him ;  and  he  was 
heard  with  promptness,  according  to  Roman  law; 
though,  unhappily,  the  law  appointed  no  time  within 
which  a  definite  sentence  should  be  pronounced.  It 
was  easy  enough  for  Felix  to  see  that  S.  Paul's  enemies 
had  no  case ;  it  was  also,  unfortunately,  equally  easy 
to  see  that  S.  Paul  might  be  a  very  useful  and  even 
profitable  prisoner.  His  comparatively  long  adminis- 
tration had  made  him  exceptionally  familiar  with 
Jewish  sects  and  parties :  with  Pharisees,  Sadducees, 
Scribes,  and  the  new  "  Way,"  the  way  of  the  Nazarenes, 
the  disciples  of  Jesus  Christ.  S.  Paul  assumes  that 
this  expression  would  be  familiar  *to  him :  "  This  I 
confess  unto  thee,  that  after  the  Way  which  they  call 
a  sect,  I  serve  the  God  of  my  fathers."  S.  Luke  also 
speaks  of  him  as  "  having  more  exact  knowledge  con- 
cerning the  Way."  So,  after  hearing  S.  Paul's  accusers, 
he  reserves  his  judgment;  and,  "after  certain  days, 
Felix  came  with  Drusilla,  his  wife,  which  was  a 
Jewess,  and  sent  for  Paul,  and  heard  him  concerning 
the  faith  in  Christ  Jesus."  He  seems,  at  this  stage,  to 
have  had  some  real  interest  in  the  subject — probably 
the  interest  of  mere  curiosity,  just  possibly  a  deeper 
interest. 

But  what,  as  S.  Paul  understood  it,  was  "  the  faith 
in  Christ  Jesus  "  ?  Assuredly  no  system  of  doctrines 
merely,  however  true ;  no  belief  in  the  bare  fact  that 
one  Jesus  of  Nazareth  had  lived  and  taught  and 
wrought  miracles  and  been  crucified ;  all  this  Felix 
knew  already,  nearly  as  well  as  S.  Paul.  But  "  faith 
in  Christ  Jesus,"  as  S.  Paul  understood  it,  meant  per- 
sonal loyalty  and  prompt  obedience.     It  must,  there- 


SELF-DELUSION.  285 

fore,  include,  among  its  most  rudimentary  elements, 
"righteousness,  and  self-control,  and  the  judgment  to 
come."*  And  now  we  come  to  the  manifest  self- 
delusion  of  Felix.  There  are  facts  of  the  utmost  con- 
ceivable importance  which  we  admit  to  be  real  facts — 
expressed  in  words  and  propositions,  we  cannot  help 
believing  them — but  we  believe  them  in  an  otiose  way, 
languidly,  even — if  that  be  not  a  contradiction  in 
terms — negatively.  We  are  not  prepared  to  admit 
their  contradictories.  At  the  most  they  are  to  us  mere 
notions, intellectual,  not  real;  belonging  to  thought,  not 
fact ;  abstract,  not  concrete.  Hence  they  have  no  effect 
upon  our  conduct ;  or,  at  the  most,  they  are  a  sort  of 
far-off  boundary,  like  the  horizon — or  perhaps  like 
the  peppercorn  rent  reserved  in  old  deeds,  so  excessively 
small  that  it  is  absurd  to  trouble  ourselves  about  it. 
It  might  involve  the  forfeiture  of  our  estate ;  but  it  is 
as  sure  as  anything  can  be  that  it  never  will.  While 
we  hold  truth  in  this  inactive  way,  self-deception  would 
be  a  superfluous  exertion,  and  hypocrisy  a  ridiculous 
expenditure  of  useless  energy. 

But,  sooner  or  later,  it  happens  to  all  of  us  that  our 
slumbering  beliefs  awake — either  of  their  own  accord, 
or  aroused  by  some  disturbance  from  without.  Then 
"righteousness,  and  self-control,  and  the  judgment  to 
come  "  cease  to  be  abstractions.  They  clothe  them- 
selves with  flesh  and  blood  ;  they  confront  us  not  only 
as  realities,  but  as  the  realities,  the  only  real  things 
which  are  of  any  serious  importance.  "  Righteous- 
ness "  becomes  righteous  acts ;  the  deeds  demanded  by 
our   consciences   which,  then   and   there,   we   did  or 

* diakeyoiMevov  61  aiiTov  nepl  dLnaioavvrjq  nal  iyKparE'uiQ  kuI  tov 
KfufiaToq  TOV  fieTikovToc:  k.  t.  Ti, 


28G  SELF-DELUSION. 

refused  to  do.  "  Self-control  "  becomes,  not  a  gentle- 
manly reticence,  abstinence  from  coarse  and  vulgar 
language  or  violent  action,  but  the  resolute  determina- 
tion of  the  will  to  abstain,  even  in  secret,  from  what 
conscience  forbids,  and  to  brace  ourselves  for  the  high 
and  heroic  achievement  of  all  possible  goodness.  "  The 
judgment  to  come  "  is  no  longer  a  vague  feeling  that, 
in  the  long  run,  everybody  will  be  the  better  or  worse 
for  his  conduct  in  this  world;  but  the  vivid  realization, 
as  if  to  the  very  eyesight,  of  "  the  great  white  throne," 
and  "  the  books"  being  opened,  and  oZ ourselves  receiv- 
ing the  due  reward  of  our  own  deeds.  When  this 
happens  to  us,  we  cannot  possibly  be  indifferent.  The 
only  possible  alternative  is  a  prompt  obedience  or  a 
voluntary  self-delusion — if  even  this  last  be  possible. 
It  may  happen  that  we  cannot  deceive  ourselves;  and 
then  the  only  alternative  is  prompt  obedience  or 
deliberate  defiance. 

Now,  this  was  precisely  the  crisis — the  judgment  of 
himself — which  came  to  Felix  Avhen  he  listened  to  S. 
Paul.  "  Eighteousness  " — it  became  a  real  thing,  not 
a  mere  intellectual  abstraction.  It  compelled  him  to 
remember  that  he  was  a  cowardly  assassin,  hiring  the 
dagger  that  he  dared  not  use  himself  It  compelled  him 
to  remember  his  collusion  with  banditti,  his  hand  in 
what  Americans  call  "deals,"  and  "rings,"  and 
"spoils."  "  Self-control  " — how,  then,  did  it  happen, 
among  other  things,  that  "  Drusilla,  which  was  a 
JeAvess,"  was  his  wife?  "  The  judgment  to  come" — 
doubtless  he  had  heard  of  it  as  some  remotely  distant 
account  that  everybody  would  have  to  render  for  deeds 
that,  after  long  millenniums,  it  might  be  hoped  would 
be  mainly  forgotten,  or  lost  altogether  in  the  innnmer- 


SELF-DELUSION,  287 

able  multitude  of  other  deeds  by  other  men.  But  noto 
it  was  a  real  thing,  seen  as  if  by  the  very  eye.  And 
why  should  it  be  so  far  away  ?  Why  should  not  the 
final  judgment  be  preceded  by  any  number  of  prelimi- 
nary judgments  ?  Why  should  he  not  be  called  to 
account — as,  in  fact,  so  soon  he  was — for  his  Procura- 
torship  of  Judgea,  and  be  compelled  to  answer  all  the 
charges  of  those  infuriated  Jews  who  never  forgot  and 
never  forgave?  He  felt  that  he  had  come  to  the  very 
edge  of  a  rugged  abyss,  and  that  the  very  ground  on 
which  he  was  standing  was  crumbling  away  under  his 
feet.  What,  then,  was  the  alternative?  For  an  alter- 
native had  surely  come.  He  must  either  promptly 
obey,  put  himself  right  with  "righteousness,  self-con- 
trol, and  the  judgment  to  come,"  or  deceive  liimself. 
He  chose  to  deceive  himself. 

And  scarcely  anything  is  easier  than  self-delusion, 
especially  as  to  the  judgm.ent  to  come.  Why,  after  all, 
should  not  all  things  continue  as  they  are  ?  The  danger  is 
not  greater  in  reality  because  we  happen  to  have  become 
aware  of  it.  We  can  be  a  little  more  on  our  guard,  but  we 
need  not  all  at  once  reverse  our  mode  of  living.  Felix 
quite  easily  accommodated  himself  to  his  new  experience. 
His  terror  soon  passed  off.  He  became  able  to  regard 
his  position  as  a  subject  rather  of  speculative  than 
practical  interest.  So  he  sent  for  S.  Paul  often,  "  and 
communed  with  him."  Nay,  so  far  had  his  terror 
in  the  contemplation  of  "righteousness  and  self- 
control  "  subsided,  that  he  deliberately  carried  on  his 
religious  inquiries  as  a  means  of  securing  bribes ;  and 
when  one  of  his  days  of  "judgment  to  come  "  actually 
arrived,  "  desiring  to  gain  favour  with  the  Jews,  he 
left  Paul  in  bonds."    This  course  of  self-deception  had 


288  SELF-DELUSION. 

lasted  for  "  two  years  " ;  and  during  every  day  of  those 
two  long  years  he  had  been  guilty  of  a  new  act  of 
unrighteousness  in  needlessly  and  cruelly  prolonging 
the  imprisonment  of  a  man  whom  he  knew  to  be 
innocent. 

Such  are  some  of  the  examples  of  self-delusion  which 
we  find  in  Holy  Scripture ;  and  "  they  are  written  for 
our  learning,  that  we  should  not"  deceive  ourselves 
*'  as  these  also  did."  Some  time  or  other — as,  for  in- 
stance, in  listening  to  a  sermon — there  comes  to  every 
one  of  us  a  vivid  realization  of  "  righteousness,  and  self- 
control,  and  the  judgment  to  come."  We  also  are,  like 
Felix,  "  terrified."  We  sit  in  judgment  on  ourselves, 
for  a  moment,  with  absolute  impartiality,  and  we  are 
self-condemned.  We  know  that  we  must  turn  from 
our  evil  ways  or  die.  It  is  not  at  all  necessary  that  we 
should  convict  ourselves  of  what  would  be  called  some 
serious  crime ;  the  peculiarity  of  the  case  is  that  we 
are  compelled  to  perceive  that  every  offense  against  God 
is  of  incalculable  seriousness,  and  that  our  whole  life 
is  crowded  with  such  offenses.  We  resolve  that  we 
will  amend,  and  "live  soberly,  righteously  and  godly 
in  this  present  world."  Alas !  even  in  this  resolve  we 
are  almost  always  tricking  ourselves.  So  w^onderful  are 
the  complexity  and  subtilty  of  our  mental  operations, 
that  in  the  very  act  of  forming  a  resolution  we  are  con- 
scious of  an  undercurrent  of  protest  and  indecision. 
It  is  obscurely  present  to  our  own  consciousness 
at  the  very  moment  that  we  have  a  reserve  of  refusal 
and  retractation.  We  have  an  undefined,  but  real, 
recollection  of  similar  resolutions  in  the  past,  and  of  how 
adroitly  we  evaded  them.     We  all  know,  from  experi- 


SELF-DELUSION.  289 

ence,  how  many  trains  of  thought  can  pass  through 
our  minds  at  the  same  time.  What  seems  easier 
than  the  fluency  of  a  practised  speaker  ?  Yet  his 
fluency  depends  upon  this  very  fact — that,  while  he  is 
uttering  the  words  which  strike  our  ears  almost  at  the 
instant  of  their  utterance,  his  mind  is  dealing  with 
words  which  are  yet  unspoken,  and  with  the  ideas  they 
will  express.  He  is  not  reme^nbering  a  speech  which 
he  has  learned  by  heart,  he  is  constructing  one  as  he 
goes  along ;  and  he  is,  perhaps,  constructing  it  out  of 
materials  some  of  which  are  furnished  to  him  by  the 
very  audience  he  is  addressing.  Their  apparent  apathy 
or  the  manifest  keenness  of  their  interest  may  quite 
change  the  plan  of  argument  or  the  devices  of  rhetoric 
which  he  had  really  intended  to  use.  A  mere  accident, 
a  casual  interruption,  a  burst  of  applause,  a  murmur  of 
dissent,  may  be  the  occasion  of  an  oratorical  triumph. 
The  processes  of  rapid  thought,  the  incalculable  celerity 
with  which  he  produces  an  almost  infinite  number  of 
new  and  unintended  combinations,  are  a  matter  of  the 
most  common  experience.  Need  we  wonder,  then, 
that  in  our  new  terror  as  we  contemplate  what  our 
spiritual  condition  really  is,  we  half  comfort  our- 
selves with  the  reflection  that  while  we  resolve  upon 
amendment  we  can  see  a  way  of  possible  retreat  ?  And 
this,  if  it  be  so,  accounts  for  the  fact  that  our  good 
resolutions  are  so  very  often  powerless;  that  the  least 
breath  can  waft  them  away;  that,  more  likely  than  not, 
they  will  be  forgotten  before  we  have  had  an  opportunity 
even  to  begin  to  execute  them.  Thus  the  Oflertory  or 
the  Anthem  may  divert  our  too  unwilling  attention ;  or 
conversation  on  the  way  home  from  church ;  or  com- 
pany at  dinner.     And  then,  from  Monday  morning  to 


290  SELF-DELUSION. 

Saturday  night,  we  find  ourselves  in  the  whirl  of  busi- 
ness, and  our  poor  resolutions  are  pushed  utterly  aside. 
They  have  been  worse  than  useless:  they  have  helped 
to  produce  a  character  of  irresolution  which  may  only 
too  easily  become  fixed  and  incurable. 

And  if  this  be  true  even  of  our  resolutions  in  rela- 
tion to  the  very  essentials  of  religion  and  morals,  we 
can  easily  see  how  yet  more  unstable  may  be  our 
resolves  as  to  what  might  be  considered  mere  aids  to 
devotion  and  "  means  of  grace."  It  might  seem  incred- 
ible— but  that  we  know  what  we  are — that  any  human 
being  should  imagine  that  he  is  independent  of  aids  to 
devotion,  when  devotion  is  so  very  hard  both  to  pro- 
duce and  to  retain.  The  importance  of  the  end  deter- 
mines the  importance  of  the  means  for  its  attainment; 
and  also,  in  the  enormous  majority  of  instances,  their 
practical  necessity.  On  this  ground  alone,  and  apart 
from  a  divine  command  and  a  special  sacramental 
grace,  the  Holy  Eucharist  might  well  be  regarded,  at 
least  in  our  present  circumstances,  as  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  salvation.  For  what  is  it  that  our  religion 
nearly  always  lacks?  It  lacks  vivid  realization;  in 
fact,  it  is  scarcely  religion  at  all,  it  is  an  imperfect 
theology.  It  consists  of  notions,  intellectual  concep- 
tions, abstractions,  generalizations,  doctrines  of  atone- 
ment, of  justification  by  faith  only,  plans  of  salvation, 
authority  of  Holy  Scripture,  and  the  like.  All  these 
are,  in  varying  degrees,  mental  representations  of  facts ; 
but  they  are  not  the  facts  themselves,  and  they  are 
often  very  imperfect  and  distorted  representations  of 
facts.  A  man  may  carefully  ponder  "the  doctrine  of 
Atonement "  as  a  mere  logician  ;  granting  certain  facts 
as  postulates,  and  then  constructing  his  syllogisms  as 


SELF-DELUSION.  291 

if  the  facts  were  no  more  than  the  X  and  Y  of  logical 
symbols.  But  all  this  is  nearly  as  remote  from  religion 
as  chemistry  or  navigation.  It  is  scarcely  too  much 
to  say  that  a  roadside  crucifix  contains  more  religious 
teaching  than  whole  tons  of  "  Evangelical "  tracts. 
Now,  what  is  one  at  least  of  the  manifold  blessings  of 
the  Holy  Eucharist  ?  Clearly  this :  it  removes  us 
from  theology  to  religion.  It  makes  religious  truth 
real.  A  doctrine  of  Atonement  is  a  series  of  proposi- 
tions: a  cross,  an  altar,  the  consecrated  Elements, 
eating  and  drinking — these  are  in  themselves  perfectly 
positive,  concrete,  real ;  and  they  at  once  carry  our 
thoughts  and  affections  to  the  crucified  Redeemer,  the 
Eternal  and  All-sufficient  Sacrifice,  the  actual  Presence 
of  the  Risen  Lord,  the  personal  participation  of  Him- 
self, our  communion  with  God  and  with  all  God's 
people,  living  and  departed.  And  feeling  the  exceeding 
poverty  of  our  religious  life,  we  resolve,  again  and 
again,  that  we  will  renew  it  at  this  fountain  of  immor- 
tality. We  will  come  to  God's  altar,  we  will  pros- 
trate ourselves  before  the  Redeemer  of  our  souls,  we 
will  partake  of  the  divine  food,  we  will  strengthen  our 
weak  faith  by  "  drawing  out ....  even  the  blood  of 
His  gored  side  ";....  in  the  wounds  of  the  Redeemer 
we  will  "dip  our  tongues":  we  will  there  "satisfy  our 
hunger  and  forever  quench  our  thirst."*  But  alas  I 
the  "  early  celebration  "  is  too  early ;  at  midday  our 
thoughts  are  so  far  astray  that  it  seems  almost  a  prof- 
anation for  us,  so  preoccupied,  to  come  to  "that 
Holy  Sacrament" — and  our  resolutions  have  evapo- 
rated. 

And,  to  give  no  further  particular  examples  of  self- 

^' Hooker,  Erel.  Pol.,  v.  57,  18. 


292  SELF-DELUSION. 

delusion  and  irresolnteness — which  would  be  only  too 
easy — I  wonld  remind  you  how  Inrid  a  light  our  own  sad 
experiences  and  our  observations  of  others  throw  upon 
the  future  state — upon  the  probable  future  condition 
of  those  who  die  in  deliberate  and  hardened  rebellion 
against  God,  or  wilful  and  habitual  disregard  of  Him. 
There  are  very  many  persons  who  regard  the  Christian 
eschatology  as  so  inexpressibly  cruel  that  it  seems  to 
them,  out  of  mere  reverence  for  the  divine  perfections, 
utterly  unbelievable.  It  may,  ind.eed,  be  very  safely 
affirmed  that  the  doctrine  by  which  their  consciences 
are  so  seriously  disturbed  is  not  always,  nor  generally, 
the  really  Christian  doctrine.  The  Catholic  Church 
undoubtedly  teaches  that  there  is  a  hell — by  no  means 
accurately  defining,  however,  as  of  faith,  where  and  what 
"  hell "  is.  But  she  distinctly  teaches  that  "  hell "  is  the 
portion  of  those  only  who  have  deliberately  and  per- 
sistently, and  from  the  bottom  of  their  hearts,  repu- 
diated the  divine  authority  and  rejected  the  divine  love. 
Nor  will  she  venture  to  pass  any  judgment  upon 
individuals,  whose  inmost  hearts  she  cannot  know, 
who  may  have  at  least  "  faith  like  a  grain  of  mustard 
seed,"  and  a  loathing  of  sin  the  depth  and  intensity  of 
which  they  do  not  themselves  realize.  She  recognizes 
that  there  may  be,  and  in  innumerable  cases  actually 
is,  an  "  invincible  "  and  therefore  pardonable  ignorance. 
Moreover,  she  teaches  us,  with  various  degrees  of  detail, 
that  there  is  an  intermediate  state,  in  which  mere 
frailty  and  imperfection  may  be  remedied,  and  the 
departed  spirit  be  subjected  to  a  divine  and  purifying 
discipline.  By  far  the  largest  portion  also  of  the 
Christian  Church  teaches  authoritatively  that,  in  this 
intermediate  state,  the  departed  spirit  may  be  aided,  as 


SELF-DELUSION.  293 

on  earth,  by  the  intercessory  prayers  and  lioly  offices  of 
those  who  survive. 

But  the  fact  to  which  I  wish  to  call  your  attention 
is  this :  that  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  future  state 
is  immeasurably  more  liojieful  than  any  doctrine  de- 
rived from  our  personal  experience  and  observation  of 
others — any  doctrine  of  retribution  derived  from 
"Natural  Keligion."  For  this  very  self-delusion  and 
pitiable  irresoluteness  of  will  of  which  I  have  been 
speaking,  we  see,  in  innumerable  instances,  becoming 
habitual.  Then  it  hardens  into  character.  Men  are 
"tied  and  bound  by  the  chains  of  their  sins."  They 
not  only  lose  the  disposition,  but  even  the  faculty,  to 
judge  themselves,  and  to  turn  from  their  evil  way. 
Sin  becomes  a  "second  nature."  Kepentance  might, 
at  any  moment,  avail  them,  were  it  only  sincere;  but 
they  can  "  find  no  place  for  repentance,  though  they 
seek  it  carefully  with  tears."  The  Gospel  of  Christ 
offers  to  them  a  divine  aid  which  they  cannot  discover 
in  Natural  Eeligion;  but  they  find  themselves  more 
and  more  incapable  not  only  of  using,  but  even  of 
desiring,  it.  If  the  experience  and  analogies  of  the 
present  life  are  any  safe  guide  for  our  conduct  and 
our  hopes,  there  are  multitudes  of  human  beings  who 
are  every  day  of  their  lives  doing  their  utmost  to 
commit  themselves  to  incurable  despair.  Nay,  there 
are  multitudes  who  seem  to  have  succeeded  in  this 
awful  spiritual  suicide,  and  who,  in  powerless  horror, 
will  affirm  that  they  are  already  damned.  The  Sacred 
Scriptures,  indeed,  are  of  divine  authority;  and  by 
their  clear  teaching  of  heaven  and  hell,  death  and 
judgment,  we  must  needs  be  bound.  But,  even  apart 
from  Holy  Scripture,  our  very  nature,  our  conscience, 


294:  SELF-DELUSION. 

our  habits,  are  forever  preaching  to  us:  "Seek  ye  the 
Lord  tohile  He  may  he  found;  call  ye  upon  Him 
wliile  He  is  neary  The  warning  voice  of  the  Divine 
Wisdom  finds  its  echo  in  every  heart:  "Because  I 
have  called  and  ye  have  refused,  I  have  stretched  out 
My  hand  and  no  man  regarded ;  but  ye  have  set  at 
naught  all  My  counsels,  and  would  none  of  My  reproof; 
/  also  toill  laugh  in  the  day  of  your  calamity :  I  -will 
mock  lohen  your  fear  cometh." 


SUPPLEMENTAKY  NOTES. 


I.  REVELATION. 

II  REMARKS  ON  DR.  MAUDSLEY'S  "NAT- 
URAL CAUSES  AND  SUPERNATURAL 
SEEMINGS." 


EEVELATION. 

A  highly-valued  friend,  who  has  also  done  me  the 
kindness  of  reading  the  proof-sheets  of  this  Yolume, 
suggests  that  the  first  four  sermons  are,  to  say  the 
least,  very  highly  conservative ;  and  that  I  have  left 
out  of  consideration,  or,  at  any  rate,  out  of  explicit 
recognition,  almost  the  whole  body  of  modern  specu- 
lations and  conclusions  on  the  subject  of  Eevelation.  I 
value  my  friend's  opinions  very  highly  in  themselves; 
but  also  because  they  indicate,  in  a  warning  way,  which 
ought  to  help  me  to  suppress  any  vain  hopes,  what  is 
the  very  maximicni  of  appreciation  and  sympathy  which 
this  little  book  may  expect.  If  I  have  not  made  myself 
plain  to  him,  it  is  quite  certain  that  there  are  very  few 
persons  to  whom  I  sliall  not  seem  obscure  or  inconclu- 
sive. It  is  not  improbable  that,  after  trying  many 
roads  and  finding  that  they  all  end  in  a  dismal  swamp 
or  dangerous  quagmire,  I  may  easily  have  become  more 
"conservative"  than  I  used  to  be.  Anyhow,  in  these 
supplementary  pages  I  will  endeavour  to  make  my 
meaning  clearer  by  adding  a  few  considerations  for 
Avhich  Sermons,  even  when  condensed  and  revised  for 
the  press,  seemed  scarcely  the  fitting  place.  If  we  are 
to  deal  satisfactorily  with  such  a  subject  as  Revelation, 
we  must  ask  such  questions  as  these:  What  is  the 
meaning  of  the  term  Eevelation  ?  Does  any  revelation, 
in  the  sense  in  which  we  define  it,  really  exist  ?  How 
has  it  been  preserved,  and  where  is  it  now  to  be  found  ? 
What  was  its  object  ?    What  has  been  its  effect  ? 


298  REVELATION. 

It  is  perfectly  obvious  that  this  inquiry — unless  it  is 
to  be  a  mere  logonnachy — can  only  be  fruitfully  carried 
on,  in  the  way  of  argument,  by  persons  who  agree  in 
certain  primary  assumptions.  I  think  the  smallest 
amount  of  assumption  required  for  this  purpose  is  the 
assumption  of  Theism — the  belief  of  the  existence  of 
God.  And  by  "  God  "  I  mean  precisely  what  Butler 
means,  what  all  Christian  divines  have  meant,  what — 
in  his  quietly  ironical  way — Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  so 
persistently  ridicules — viz.,  "An  intelligent  Author  of 
Nature,  with  a  will  and  a  character."  The  ivord 
"  God,"  indeed,  is  in  these  days  employed  by  almost 
everybody ;  but  we  are  concerned  not  with  the  word, 
but  with  what  the  word  stands  for.  Listen,  for 
instance,  to  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  {S.  Paul  and 
Protestantism,  p.  8)  : 

Neither  is  it  that  the  scientific  sense  in  ns  refuses  to  admit 
willingly  and  reverently  the  name  of  God,  at  a  point  in  which 
the  religious  and  the  scientific  sense  may  meet,  as  the  least 
inadequate  name  for  that  universal  order  which  the  intellect 
feels  after  as  a  law,  and  the  heart  feels  after  as  a  benefit.  ' '  We, 
too,"  might  the  men  of  science  with  truth  say  to  the  men  of 
religion — "  we,  too,  would  gladly  say  Ood,  if  only  the  moment 
one  says  Ood,  you  would  not  pester  one  with  your  pretensions 
of  knowing  all  about  Him. ' '  That  stream  of  tendency  by  which 
all  things  strive  to  fulfil  the  latv  of  their  being,  and  which, 
inasmuch  as  our  idea  of  real  welfare  resolves  itself  into  this 
fulfihnent  of  the  law  of  one's  being,  man  rightly  deems  the 
fountain  of  all  goodness,  and  calls  by  the  worthiest  and  most 
solemn  name  he  can,  which  is  God,  science  also  might  willingly 
own  for  the  fountain  of  all  goodness,  and  call  God.  But,  how- 
ever much  more  than  this  the  heart  may  with  propriety  put 
into  its  language  respecting  God,  this  is  as  much  as  science  can 
with  strictness  put  there. 

This  use  of  the  name  "  God  "  seems  to  me  a  gross 


REVELATION. 


299 


and  absurd  abuse  of  language.  If  this  "  God  "  reveals 
anything,  we  must  find  a  new  meaning  for  the  word 
"  revelation,"  to  correspond  to  the  undiscoverable 
attributes  of  the  hypothetical,  purposeless  and 
characterless  revealer.  Surely  it  might  be  more  sensi- 
ble altogether  to  decline  a  controversy  which  must  be 
based  on  this  admission  of  total  ignorance  or  blank 
negation. 

What  is  the  real  meaning  of  the  words  reveal  and 
revelation,  as  used  in  ordinary  English  literature  and 
the  conversation  of  those  educated  English-speaking 
people  who  use  their  language  with  strict  accuracy  ? 
All  facts  or  truths  which  are  unknoion  may  be  spoken 
of  metaphorically — and  our  commonest  words  are,  at 
bottom,  nearly  all  metaphorical— as  concealed  by  a 
veil  or  covering.  To  impart  or  to  acquire  the  knowl- 
edge of  facts  heretofore  unknown  may  be  represented, 
metaphorically,  as  the  removal  of  a  veil  or  cover, 
whether  the  veil  or  cover  be  removed  by  ourselves  or 
by  somebody  else.  But  these  two  modes  of  acquiring 
the  knowledge  of  truth  are  essentially  different  from 
each  other,  and  it  is  often  of  great  importance  to  keep 
this  difference  prominently  in  sight.  In  order  to  do 
this  it  will  be  desirable,  if  possible,  to  denote  them  by 
different  naynes ;  which,  connoting  the  common  pro- 
cess of  removing  a  cover  or  veil,  will  further  connote 
whether  the  veil  or  cover  be  removed  by  the  very 
person  who  obtains  new  knowledge,  or  by  some  other 
on  his  behalf.  Now,  two  such  words  exist  in  the 
English  language,  and  are  in  constant  use,  and  they 
are  used  precisely  for  these  different  purposes.  They 
both  connote  the  removing  of  a  veil  or  cover;  they 
further  connote  (severally)  that  the  veil  is  removed  by 


300  REVELATION. 

one's  self,  and  that  the  veil  is  removed  by  another  on 
one's  behalf.     These  words  are  discover  and  reveal. 

Originally  and  etymologically  these  two  words  are 
exactly  synonymons ;  but  under  the  pressure  of  en- 
larging thought  and  for  the  sake  of  greater  accuracy 
of  expression — and  at  the  same  time  as  an  economy  of 
language — perfectly  synonymous  wor.ds  acquire  in  a 
very  short  time  slightly  different  shades  of  meaning. 
One  of  two  perfectly  synonymous  words  is  manifestly 
superfluous  as  a  synonym;  but  it  may  be  used,  and 
in  the  growth  of  language  always  is  used,  to  convey 
the  common  meaning  of  the  two  with  a  modification. 
Both  the  synonyms  may  be  thus  used;  so  that  per- 
haps no  word  is  left  to  convey  the  common  meaning 
apart  from  a  modification.  Perhaps  the  word  uncover 
might  be  adequate  to  convey  the  mere  notion  of  the 
process  both  of  obtaining  and  imparting  new  truth; 
but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  retains  still  only  its  literal 
meaning. 

To  reveal,  then,  means  to  remove  for  somebody  else's 
benefit  the  veil  which  conceals  truth  hitherto  to  him  tm- 
knoivn  ;  and  revelation  means  tlie  removal  by  somebody 
else  of  the  veil  which  2oas  concealing  from  any  one  the 
truth  whicli  that  H7iveiling  has  made  manifest  to  him. 
On  the  other  hand,  to  discover  means  to  remove  by  our 
own  industry  or  effort,  or  even  purposeless  act,  the  cover- 
ing zvhich  concealed  certain  t7'uths  or  facts ;  and  the 
substantive  discovery  has  a  corresponding  connotation. 
Thus,  e.  g.,  we  should  say,  or  might  correctly  say,  that 
Mr.  Darwin  discovered  certain  habits  of  earthworms, 
and  that  in  his  very  entertaining  volume  he  revealed 
the  knowledge  of  those  habits  to  his  readers. 

But,  after  all,  the  real  meaning  of  a  word  cannot  be 


REVELATION.  301 

ascertained  by  mere  divination  or  guessing,  or  even  by 
assuming  that  its  history  and  present  signification 
must  necessarily  have  been  determined  by  the  general 
principles  of  what  may  be  called  the  philosophy  or 
science  of  language.  The  real  question  is :  How,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  do  recognized  authorities  actually  employ 
the  word  ?  Now,  there  are  two  works  which,  even  as 
English  classics,  will  certainly  be  accepted  as  authori- 
tative on  such  a  question,  if  they  contain  any  evidence 
at  all  on  the  matter — the  Bible  and  "Shakespeare." 
And  these  works  are,  on  other  grounds,  of  such 
supreme  excellence  that  it  has  been  found  worth  while 
to  construct  a  perfect  Concordance  of  each  of  them  by 
which  they  may  quite  easily  be  consulted.  Let  us, 
then,  begin  with  Shakespeare.  The  word  revelation 
does  not  occur  in  Shakespeare's  plays,  but  its  meaning 
will  be,  of  course,  determined  by  the  meaning  of  the 
verb  reveal.  Here,  then,  are  all  the  instances  of  the 
use  of  this  word  in  Shakespeare; 

Reveal  yourself  to  him. — Measure  for  Measure,  v.  1. 

Lately  we  intended 
To  keep  in  darkness  what  occasion  now 
Eeveals  before  'tis  ripe. — Twelfth  Night,  v.  1. 

We  will  see  them  reveal  themselves. — All's  Well,  iv.  3. 
Madam,  I  have  a  secret  to  reveal. — /.  Henry  IV.,  y.  3. 
Till  the  heavens  reveal  the  damned. — Tit.  Andron.,  iv.  1. 
Reveal  how  thou  at  sea  did'st  lose,  etc. — Pericles,  v.  3. 
No ;  you  will  reveal  it. — Hamlet,  i.  5. 
She  revealed  herself. — /.  Henry  VI.,  i.  2. 
Hath  revealed  to  us  the  truth. — II.  Henry  VI.,  ii.  3. 
I  never.  .  .  .  revealed  myself  unto  him. — Lear,  v.  3. 

There  is  not    the  slightest  ambiguity  about  the 
meaning  of  any  one  of  these  passages ;  in  every  one  of 


302  REVELATION. 

them  the  word  reveal  means  exactly  what  I  have  affirmed 
it  means.  In  every  case  some  person  or  some  thing 
"  removes  a  veil  "  for  the  benefit  of  somebody  else. 

It  was  one  of  the  mental  peculiarities  of  the  late  Mr. 
Frederick  D.  Maurice  that  when  he  had  discovered  a 
particular  truth,  sometimes  an  exceedingly  obvious 
truth,  he  invested  it  with  an  altogether  fictitious  and 
exaggerated  importance,  and  with  almost  infinite  in- 
genuity employed  it  as  a  clue  for  the  unraveling  of  all 
manner  of  mysteries  with  which  nobody  else  could  see 
that  it  had  any  special  relation.  Thus,  for  instance, 
he  was  profoundly  impressed  with  the  fact — perfectly 
well  known  to  every  intelligent  person  who  uses  the 
English  language — that  the  word  reveal  means  (ety- 
mologically)  to  remove  a  veil ;  and  he  seemed  to  think 
that  this  was  a  key  to  everything  mysterious  in  the 
whole  subject  of  revelation  as  a  theological  or  religious 
problem.  It  seems  almost  incredible  that  so  subtle  a 
thinker — except  perhaps  by  reason  of  his  excessive 
subtlety — should  have  imagined  either  that  he  had 
made  a  new  discovery  as  to  the  etymological  meaning 
of  the  word  reveal,  or  that  that  meaning  would  throw 
any  clear  light  upon  the  real  questions  at  issue  in  the 
Avhole  discussion  about  revelation  as  a  supposed  fact  or 
technical  term  of  religion  or  theology.  The  real  ques- 
tion at  issue  is,  Wlio  is  the  revealerf  What  did  He  revealf 
Where  can  we  find  His  revelations  or  a  trustworthy 
record  of  them  ?  Just  at  that  time  a  series  of  Present- 
Day  Papers  was  being  issued,  under  the  editorship  of 
Bishop  Ewing,  and  to  this  series  Mr.  Maurice  con- 
tributed a  paper  entitled  Use  of  the  Word '■'■  Revelation" 
in  the  New  Testament.  Of  that  paper,  the  following 
most  characteristic  passage  is  the  opening  paragraph : 


REVELATION.  303 

"  In  an  advertisement  prefixed  to  these  tracts,  Revelation 
is  said  to  mean  the  giving  of  light,  or  the  removal  of  a 
veil.  That  sense,  however  accordant  with  the  obvious 
etymology  of  the  word,  has  been  said  to  be  inconsistent 
with  the  reverence  Avhich  we  owe  to  the  Scriptures. 
Modern  usage  has  determined  that  the  name  shall 
denote  the  lessons  which  we  receive  from  the  Bible,  as 
contrasted  with  those  which  we  receive  from  the 
natural  world,  or  from  our  own  conscience  and  reason. 
To  depart  from  that  usage  is,  it  is  said,  to  show  that 
we  do  not  care  for  the  testimony  of  the  Bible;  that  we 
wish  to  substitute  for  it  some  theories  or  conclusions 
of  our  own."  It  is  a  most  curious  psychological  phe- 
nomenon that  one  so  transparently  honest  as  Mr. 
Maurice  should  have  habitually  and  unconsciously,  by 
the  mere  turn  of  a  phrase  or  a  question-begging  epithet, 
misrepresented  the  opinions  of  those  who  differed  from 
him.  It  was  not  affirmed,  in  this  particular  instance, 
or  for  the  assigned  reason,  that  he  did  "not  care  for 
the  testimony  of  the  Bible,"  but  that  his  peculiar  and 
one-sided  way  of  explaining  revelation  implicitly  denied 
that  there  is  anything  unique  in  that  revelation  which 
is  recorded  in  the  Sacred  Scriptures.  If  that  revelation 
has  no  qualities,  whether  of  matter,  or  origin,  or 
authority,  by  reason  of  which  it  is  rightly  and  inevitably 
contrasted  with  the  lessons  which  Ave  receive  from  "  the 
natural  world,"  most  unquestionably  it  is  not  what  the 
immense  majority  of  Christian  people  have  always 
believed  it  to  be.  The  truth  contained  in  the  Bible, 
like  all  other  known  truth,  has  become  known  to  us 
by  the  removing  of  a  veil.  The  question  is,  Was  that 
unveiling  a  revelation  or  a  discovery?  This  distinc- 
tion Mr.  Maurice  seems  to  have  left  altogether  out  of 


304  REVELATION. 

consideration.  If  it  were  a  revelation,  who  removed  the 
veil  1  Was  it  God,  or  was  it  "  the  natural  world  "  ? 
Mr.  Maurice's  long  array  of  texts,  and  subtle  exposition 
of  them,  really  does  not  touch  the  questions  at  issue. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  leaves  the  impression  or  creates 
the  suspicion  that  he  considered  those  questions  as  of 
secondary  or  no  importance. 

Mr.  Maurice's  list  of  passages  in  the  New  Testament 
where  reveal  or  revelation  occurs  may  be  accepted  as 
exhaustive,  though  I  have  not  compared  it  with 
Bruder's  Greek  Concordance ;  at  any  rate  it  is  abun- 
dantly sufficient.  And  every  passage  cited  is  an 
unambiguous  example  of  that  precise  meaning  which 
I  have  assigned  to  the  words  reveal  and  revelation  as 
connoting  a  revealer;  or,  in  other  words,  that  the  veil  is 
removed  by  some  other  than  the  person  to  whom  the  pre- 
viously unknown  truth  or  fact  is  manifested.  Here  are 
a  few  of  them:  "  Thou  hast  revealed  them  unto  babes  " ; 
"  he  to  whom  the  Son  will  reveal  Him  " ;  "  in  the  day 
when  the  Son  of  Man  is  revealed  "  ;  "  according  to  the 
revelation  of  the  mystery  "  ;  "  God  hath  revealed  them 
unto  us  by  His  Spirit"  ;  "  I  received  the  Gospel  by  the 
revelation  of  Jesus  Christ"  ;  "by  revelation  He  made 
known  to  me  the  mystery " ;  "  salvation  ready  to  be 
revealed  in  the  last  time  " ;  "  the  revelation  of  Jesus 
Christ  which  God  gave  to  Him." 

No  doubt  these  words  reveal  and  revelation  have,  like 
almost  all  others,  secondary,  tertiary,  analogical,  meta- 
phorical meanings  or  applications.  Thus,  for  instance, 
revelation  may  mean  either  the  process  of  removing  the 
veil,  or  the  result  of  that  process — the  act  of  imparting 
truth,  or  the  truth  imparted ;  but  it  invariably,  when 
employed  by  accurate  writers  or  speakers,  retains  the 


REVELATION,  305 

implication  that  one  not  ourselves  is  removing  the  veil 
for  our  benefit.  Again,  the  revealer  may  be  a  real 
person,  or  some  fact  or  abstraction  personified.  We 
discover  in  a  drawer  in  a  supposed  miser's  bureau  a 
number  of  letters  acknowledging  with  fervent  thanks 
most  generous  gifts,  and  we  say,  "  Those  letters  were  a 
revelation  to  me."  Here  we  do  not  mean  to  affirm  that 
we  set  about  trying  to  discover  what  the  supposed 
miser's  character  really  was.  The  knowledge  of  what 
it  really  was  is  regarded  as  brought  to  us  from  without, 
apart  from  our  own  effort,  by  certain  letters.  We  per- 
sonify those  letters ;  we  say  they  gave  us  a  revelatioii. 
Without  personification  or  metaphor,  we  might  have 
expressed  the  same  result  by  saying,  "  I  discovered  his 
true  character  by  coming  accidentally  into  possession 
of  certain  letters,  and  reading  them." 

The  process,  then,  by  which  we  arrive  at  the  posses- 
sion of  hitherto  unknown  truth  may  be  described  meta- 
phorically as  the  removal  of  a  veil;  and  the  veil  may 
be  removed  either  by  ourselves  or  by  somebody  else  for 
us.  In  the  first  case  we  mahe  a  discovery  ;  in  the  second 
we  receive  a  revelation.  But  it  is  obvious — still  dealing 
only  with  the  general  question,  and  apart  from  religious 
or  theological  applications — that  a  revelation  may  be 
made  to  us  in  such  a  form  as  also  to  require  a  discovery 
— that  is  to  say,  not  an  independent  discovery  of  the 
truth  revealed  (which  would  supersede  the  necessity  of  a 
revelation),  but  a  disroveri/  of  the  revelation.  Truth  may 
be  revealed  to  us  by  direct  communication.  This  kind 
of  revelation  is  perfectly  familiar  to  us;  we  make  and 
receive  such  revelations  every  day  of  our  lives.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  may  be  revealed  by  letter,  or  by  books, 
or  by  directing  us  to  sources  of  knowledge  of  which 


306  KEVELATION. 

we  should  not  otherwise  have  been  aware.  Tii\6  the 
case  I  have  already  instanced — Mr.  Darwin's  delight- 
ful book  about  Earthworms.  Before  we  can  really 
avail  ourselves  of  his  interesting  discoveries  we  must 
get  his  book  and  read  it.  This  will  be  a  process  of 
discovery:  we  find  out  where  the  book  is,  and  what  it 
contains.  But  we  do  not  discover  the  peculiar  habits 
of  the  earthworms ;  Mr.  Darwin  discovered  that ;  he 
revealed  his  discoveries  in  a  book  ;  and  2ve  discover  the 
revelation.  In  fact,  it  may  be  admitted  that  whenever 
we  are  removed  from  immediate  personal  contact  with 
the  revealer,  discover}'  will  always  be  necessary  to 
put  us  in  possession  of  the  benefits  of  the  revelation. 
This  by  no  means  implies  that  a  revelation  is  useless ; 
for  even  though  it  may  be  very  difficult  to  discover  the 
revelation,  it  might  for  us  have  been  utterly  and  forever 
impossible  to  discover  the  truths  revealed. 

But  though  a  revelation  almost  always  requires  a 
supplementary  discovery,  it  is  by  no  means  true,  con- 
versely, that  every  discovery  implies  a  previous  revela- 
tion. This  Avould  involve  both  a  contradiction  in 
terms  and  a  denial  of  the  most  obvious  facts  of  every- 
day experience.  For,  as  to  the  terms,  how  can  it  be 
possible  to  remove  a  veil  or  cover  which  has  been 
removed  already  ? 

And  as  to  facts,  when  we  speak  of  people  who  have 
knowledge  at  first  hand  do  Ave  not  mean  exactly  this — 
that  they  found  it  out  for  themselves,  without  direct 
assistance  from  other  people?  It  seems  to  me  in- 
credible that  anybody  should  miss  or  neglect  these 
distinctions,  except  under  the  blinding  or  deflecting 
influence  of  some  supposed  logical  or  theological  ex- 
pediency.    It  is,  by  very  many  distinguished  persons. 


REVELATION.  30  7 

denied  that  there  is  in  the  Sacred  Scriptures  the  record 
of  any  real  revehitions  from  Almighty  God.  Many 
Christians  become  perplexed  and  alarmed  by  these  bold 
denials,  and  they  are  willing  to  compromise.  "How," 
they  ask,  "  can  you  deny  revelation  in  Scripture  when 
we  have  revelations  everywhere  ?  The  very  earthworm 
is  a  revelation."  This  seems  to  me  like  having  a 
protective  tariff  which  protects  everything  in  exactly 
the  same  way  and  degree.  1^  everything  is  a  revelation, 
it  is  safe  to  affirm  that  nothing  is. 

For  my  own  part  I  entirely  disbelieve  this.  I  do  not 
believe  that  all  human  discovery  is  a  discovery  of 
revelations  of  facts,  and  not  of  facts  themselves;  nor 
do  I  believe  that  all  facts,  when  they  have  been  dis- 
covered, can  be  called  revelations  without  a  gross  and 
needless  and  highly  mischievous  abuse  of  language. 
Take  Mr.  Darwin  again,  and  our  delightful  earth- 
worms. AVhich  is  the  correct  statement  of  actual  fact: 
"  Somebody  revealed  to  Mr.  Darwin  the  habits  of 
earthworms";  or  this:  "Mr.  Darwin  found  them  out 
for  himself"?  If  anybody  affirms  that  somebody  re- 
vealed this  to  Mr.  Darwin,  who  was  the  somebody? 
Certainly  no  human  being,  no  previous  discoverer;  that, 
in  fact,  would  only  have  removed  the  question  a  step 
backward.  "  Well,"  a  religious  person  with  a  muddled 
intellect,  or  a  mystical  way  of  looking  at  things,  might 
reply,  "  God  revealed  it  to  Darwin."  Another  may 
say,  "  Nature  revealed  it."  How  ?  directly  or  in- 
directly? "Indirectly."  How  indirectly ?  "By  giving 
Darwin  faculties  adapted  for  discovering,  and  leaving 
in  his  way  things  to  be  discovered."  So  it  would  seem 
that  throwing  all  sorts  of  things  about  in  all  directions, 
piling  them  on  each  other,  hiding  some  of  them  under 


308  REVELATION. 

heaps  of  rubbish,  and  giving  a  man  the  faculty  of  finding 
til  em  out  if  he  happens  to  wish  it,  and  is  very  skilful 
and  persevering — this  is  exactly  the  same  thing  as 
giving  a  man  such  acmirate  information  about  where 
and  what  these  different  scattered  objects  are  as  we 
have  in  Darwin's  book  about  the  habits  of  earth- 
worms. The  only  way  to  refute  a  theory  of  this  kind 
is  clearly  to  state  it. 

And  as  the  habits  of  earthworms  were  not  revealed 
to  Mr.  Darwin,  but  discovered  by  him,  so,  when  dis- 
covered, they  did  not  themselves  reveal  anything 
further.  To  attribute  the  power  of  revealing  to  an 
earthworm  is  another  example  of  the  policy,  in  our 
modern  theological  controversies,  of  a  protective  tariff 
all  round.  First  of  all  somebody  suggests,  as  if  it 
were  a  very  valuable  discovery,  that  revelation  is 
removing  a  veil.  But  removing  a  veil  requires  a 
remover.  In  fact,  all  these  terms,  reveal,  revelation, 
revealer;  discover,  discovery,  discoverer — all  imply 
intelligence.  To  say  that  a  stone  or  an  earthworm 
reveals  anything  is  to  build  a  metaphor  upon  a  meta- 
phor. But  tvhat  veil  does  the  earthworm  remove, 
concealing  what  hitherto  unknown  truth  or  fact?  Is 
it  the  hitherto  unknown  fact  of  its  own  existence  or 
habits  ?  But  the  veil  which  covered  that  fact  has 
already  been  removed  hy  Mr.  Darwin,  and  the  worm 
has  nothing  left  to  do  but  creep  about  and  be  looked  at. 

There  are  many  people  now-a-days  who  seem  unable 
or  unwilling  to  acknowledge  any  special  revelation 
given  by  Almighty  God  and  recorded  in  the  Sacred 
Scriptures,  while  yet  they  are  deeply  impressed  with 
the  conviction  that  such  revelation  is  needed,  and  that 
such  revelation  has  been  somewhere  given.     In  this 


REVELATION.  309 

part  of  my  exposition  I  have  not  reached  the  assump- 
tion which  I  consider  necessary  for  a  complete  investi- 
gation— viz.:  the  assumption  of  Theism.  But,  as  a 
mere  theory,  the  special  revehitions  given  to  Israel  and 
recorded  in  Scripture  are  far  more  in  accord  with  our 
general  experience  of  the  phenomena  of  Nature  and 
life  than  universal  revelations,  given  everywhere  in 
general  and  nowhere  in  particular.  Why  is  it  not 
enough  that  an  earthworm  should  he  an  earthworm, 
and  nothing  more'^  Why  must  we  insist  that  it  shall 
be  also  a  Doctor  of  Divinity,  write  a  new  Butler's 
Analogy  adapted  to  modern  thought,  or  play  the 
mediator  between  Science  and  Theology,  Eeason  and 
Faith  ?  Indeed,  this  new  theory  of  a  revelation  in 
everything,  from  a  tadpole  to  the  sublime  discourses 
recorded  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  which  is  the  most 
subtle  and  delusive  form  of  the  denial  of  any  revela- 
tion, involves,  in  spite  of  the  grain  of  truth  which  it 
contains,  a  complete  stultification  of  the  very  idea  of 
revelation  even  in  its  most  rudimentary  form.  If 
everything  in  the  universe  is  busily  engaged  in  strip- 
ping itself  naked,  and  in  removing  the  veil  or  cover 
from  everything  else,  how  can  it  possibly  happen  that 
there  is  any  cover  left  on1  We  must,  on  this  hypothesis, 
define  revelation  as  a  conceivable  process  of  removing 
veils,  if  we  had  our  place  in  a  universe  in  which  there 
were  any  veils  to  remove. 

I  hope,  then,  that  I  have  made  clear  not  only  what 
I  suppose  to  be  the  meaning  of  the  words  reveal,  dis- 
cover, and  their  correlatives,  but  what  the  real  mean- 
ing of  those  words  is,  as  determined  by  the  use  that  is 
continually  made  of  them  in  standard  and  classical 
literature,  and  in  the  conversation  of  educated  people 


310  REVELATION, 

who  speak  accurately.  And  now  it  is  high  time  to 
take  into  oar  consideration  that  assumption  of  Theism 
without  which,  of  course,  all  discussion  of  religious 
matters  must  be  entirely  nugatory.  But  our  previous 
investigations  will  still  avail  us ;  for,  however  far  our 
discussion  of  religious  matters  may  lead  us,  we  shall 
be  greatly  assisted  by  keeping  clear  in  our  minds  the 
distinctions  to  which  I  have  called  attention,  and 
which  I  have  tried  to  make  plain,  in  the  preceding 
remarks.  Indeed,  it  seems  to  me  that  whether  we 
regard  religion  as  a  system  of  truths,  or  as  rules  for 
the  guidance  of  life,  the  difference  between  Natural 
and  Revealed  Religion — to  adopt  Butler's  language — 
is  precisely  this:  the  truths  and  rules  of  Natural 
Religion  have  been  discovered,  the  truths  of  Revealed 
Religion  have  been  made  known  to  us  by  some  other 
than  ourselves.  From  the  one  set  of  truths  and  rules 
we  have  ourselves  removed  tlie  veil ;  from  the  otlier  the 
veil  has  leen  removed  for  tis  by  some  Other.  "  Natural 
and  Revealed  "  is,  in  fact,  exactly  equivalent  to  "  dis- 
covered and  revealed,'^  as  above  defined  and  illustrated; 
or,  taking  in  the  assumption  of  Theism,  "  discovered 
by  man,  and  revealed  by  God."  And  here  we  must 
remember  that  what  was  originally  revealed  by  God 
will  need  to  be  discovered  as  a  revelation  by  those  who 
are  to  be  benefited  by  it;  and  what  was  discovered  by 
one  man,  or  set  of  men,  will  be  a  revelation  (not 
directly  from  God,  but  from  the  discoverers')  to  all  those 
who  have  been  either  unable  or  unwilling  to  make  the 
discoveries  for  themselves. 

In  what  follows,  in  this  section,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered, I  am  about  to  make  use  of  the  assumption  of 
Theism :    the   assumption  which,   with   his   exquisite 


REVELATION.  311 

irony,  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  so  pitilessly  derides :  the 
assumption  of  "an  intelligent  Author  of  Nature,  with 
a  character  and  a  will."  And  this  may  be  an  assump- 
tion— that  is  to  say,  the  admitted  postulate  or  datum 
of  an  argument — even  though  it  might  be  itself  the 
result  of  discovery  or  revelation.  But  the  question 
may  be  worth  considering,  as  affecting  even  those  who 
repudiate  the  assumption,  Is  it  really  nothing  more  ? 
Is  it  not,  for  instance,  the  result  of  discovery,  of  our 
own  persistent  endeavours  to  find  out  the  veiled  and 
concealed  truth  ?  I  think  not.  It  seems  to  me  that 
we  could  never  have  set  out  on  the  discovery  of  a  God 
if  we  had  not  already  been  aware  of  His  existence. 
No  Columbus  sets  out  to  discover  an  "America"  until 
he  is  inwardly  certain  that  an  "America"  exists. 
Before  we  try  to  find  God  we  must  at  least  believe  that 
He  is.  The  idea  of  God,  the  inward  conviction  of 
His  existence  and  that  He  is  such  or  such  a  Being, 
must  have  been  in  our  minds  before  it  could  have 
been  possible  for  us  to  go  in  quest  of  further  informa- 
tion. How,  then,  did  we  arrive  at  that  primitive 
belief  ?  It  seems  to  me  that  we  arrived  at  it  by  revela- 
tion, and  that  the  revelation  of  the  existence  of  God, 
and  of  His  righteousness,  is  given  to  every  man  in  his 
very  nature,  and  especially  in  his  conscience. 

And  here  I  may  repeat  what  I  said  above,  tliat  a 
revelation — ariy  revelation — e.  g.,  from  man  to  man — 
may  be  made  in  many  ways.  It  may  be  made  directly, 
by  actual  oral  communication,  face  to  face;  or  by 
letter;  or  by  books;  or  by  giving  information  of  the 
place  where  the  required  unknown  truth  may  be 
discovered;  or  by  putting  a  person  in  circumstances, 
which  otherwise  he  would  have  been  neither  able  nor 


312  REVELATION. 

perhaps  willing  to  place  himself  in,  where  it  will  be 
absolutely  impossible  for  him  to  avoid  becoming  aware 
of  the  truth  which  otherwise  he  could  never  have 
known.  It  is  in  some  such  way  as  this  last,  it  seems 
to  me,  that  God  has  revealed  to  every  human  being 
His  existence,  His  righteousness,  His  supreme 
authority,  His  sure  judgment.  He  has  put  every  man 
in  close  contact  with  a  conscience  from  which  he  can 
never,  by  any  device,  separate  himself.  He  has  made 
conscience  a  part  of  every  man's  nature.  We  have  all 
observed  that  in  the  paper  on  which  we  Avrite  there  is 
often  inwoven  the  name  of  the  manufacturer.  We 
cannot  erase  it.  It  is  not  written  on  the  paper,  it  is 
woven  into  it:  it  is  a  part  of  the  paper  itself.  In  some 
such  way  God  seems  to  have  inwoven  Himself  in  the 
life  and  consciousness  of  every  human  being;  and 
hence  it  comes  to  pass  that  the  most  ignorant  have 
some  knowledge  of  God,  and  the  most  subtle  and 
sceptical  of  mankind  can  never  get  rid  of  it.  Force, 
order,  law,  righteousness,  "  a  stream  of  tendency  " — all 
these  words  or  phrases  are  more  or  less  inadequate 
synonyms  for  the  name  God.  We  assume  Theism, 
then,  because  it  is  given  to  us  by  a  primary  and 
universal  revelation ;  and  all  that  discovery  can  do  is 
to  find  out,  so  far  as  human  nature  can,  exactly  what 
it  means.  Meanwhile  it  is  the  assumption  on  which 
our  further  discussion  of  revelation  will  be  based. 

Setting  out,  then,  from  this  primary  assumption — 
whether  we  regard  it  as  a  divine  revelation  or  as  a 
mere  logical  datum — we  start  on  our  voyage  of  dis- 
covery to  find  out  what  sort  of  world  the  ''intelligent 
Author  of  Nature,  with  a  character  and  a  will,"  has 
actually  constructed  ;  how  we  can  make  the  best  of  it; 


REVELATION.  313 

in  what  way  we  must  live  to  secure  His  approval,  or, 
at  least,  to  avoid  His  puuisliment  and  curse.  And 
here  we  are  confronted,  not  with  theories,  but  with 
facts.  Human  beings  generally  are  not  skilled 
logicians.  The  world,  nevertheless,  is  full  of  religions, 
which  have  not  been  made,  but  have  grown — we  know 
not  how.  Men  really  did  begin  with  the  conviction  of 
the  positive  reality  of  God,  not  as  a  hypothetical 
datum  for  argument,  but  as  a  living  Being,  more  real, 
if  possible,  than  His  creaturgs  and  worshippers.  They 
were  very  ignorant  and  confused.  They  often  "  di- 
vided the  substance  of  God  " — to  use  a  convenient 
phrase  of  technical  theology.  They  scarcely  dared  to 
contemplate  the  one  ultimate  Source  of  all  that  is. 
They  personified  His  various  attributes.  They  made 
to  themselves  "gods  many  and  lords  many."  But 
almost  'everywhere  we  meet  with  some  recognition 
of  a  primal  Source  of  all  life,  some  "  Father  of 
gods  and  men."  We  have  Zeus,  or  destiny,  or  an  un- 
fathomable abyss  of  life  and  power  too  awful  to  name, 
too  dreadful  to  approach.  If  we  want  to  know  what 
the  discoveries  of  Natural  Eeligion  are,  we  can  find  this 
out  by  examining  the  actual  natural  religions  which 
have  left  their  record  in  history,  or  poetry,  or  art,  or 
superstition.  And  to  help  us  in  this  investigation  I 
can  remember  nothing  better  than  the  wonderful 
chapter  (Chapter  X.)  by  which  Cardinal  Newman 
concludes  his  Grammar  of  Assent. 

Of  course,  it  may  be  truly  urged  that  the  discoveries 
contained  in  existing  or  extinct  natural  religions  are, 
on  the  one  hand,  rough,  unverified,  unscientific ;  and, 
on  the  other,  tliat  nearly  all  these  religions  have  come 
into  contact,  at  one  time  or  other,  with  what  Chris- 


314:  REVELATION. 

tians  claim  to  be  revelations  properly  so  called — that 
is  to  say,  revelations  as  above  defined,  and  as  distinct 
from  discoveries.  It  may  be  well,  therefore,  to  approach 
the  subject  from  a  somewhat  diJSerent  point  of  view. 
Given,  then,  as  the  primary  assumption,  an  intelligent 
Author  of  Nature,  we  discover  that  Nature  is  a  scheme 
or  constitution  ;  that  it  includes  ourselves,  and  there- 
fore involves  moral  government.  And  in  these  investi- 
gations I  have  yet  to  discover  any  better  guide  than 
Butler.  To  read  over  again  the  Analogy  and  the 
Sermons  on  Human  Nature,  after  the  dizzying  and 
incredibly  venturesome  speculations  of  modern  times, 
has  a  steadying  and  healthful  influence,  like  several 
days'  rest  at  home  after  a  stormy  ocean  voyage  not  unac- 
companied by  exhaustion  and  distress  of  intolerable 
seasickness.  Let  us,  then,  carefully  consider  the 
following  passage  from  the  Analogy  (pp.  131-133, 
Oxford  Edition) : 

Upon  supposition  that  God  exercises  a  moral  government 
over  the  world,  the  analogy  of  His  natural  government  sug- 
gests and  makes  it  credible  that  His  moral  government  mnst 
be  a  scheme  quite  beyond  our  comprehension  ;  and  this  affords 
a  general  answer  to  all  objections  against  the  justice  and  good- 
ness of  it.  It  is  most  obvious,  analogy  renders  it  highly  credible, 
that,  upon  supposition  of  a  moral  government,  it  must  be  a 
scheme — ^for  the  world,  and  the  whole  natural  government  of  it, 
appears  to  be  so — to  be  a  scheme,  system,  or  constitution 
whose  parts  correspond  to  each  other,  and  to  a  whole,  as  really 
as  any  work  of  art,  or  as  any  particular  model  of  a  civil  con- 
stitution and  government.  In  this  great  scheme  of  the  natural 
world,  individuals  have  various  peculiar  relations  to  other 
individuals  of  their  own  species.  And  whole  species  are,  we 
find,  variously  related  to  other  species  upon  this  earth.  Nor  do 
we  know  how  much  farther  these  kinds  of  relations  may  extend. 
And,  as  there  is  not  any  action  or  natural  event  which  we  are 


REVELATION.  315 

acquainted  with  so  single  and  unconnected  as  not  to  have  a 
respect  to  some  other  actions  and  events,  so  possibly  each  of 
them,  -when  it  has  not  an  immediate,  may  yet  have  a  remote, 
natural  relation  to  other  actions  and  events  much  beyond  the 
compass  of  this  present  world.  There  seems,  indeed,  nothing 
from  whence  we  can  so  much  as  make  a  conjecture  whether  all 
creatures,  actions  and  events,  throughout  the  whole  of  Nature, 
have  relations  to  each  other.  But  as  it  is  obvious  that  all 
events  have  future  unknown  consequences,  so  if  we  trace  any 
as  far  as  we  can  go  into  what  is  connected  with  it,  we  shall 
find  that  if  such  event  were  not  connected  with  somewhat 
farther  in  Nature  unknown  to  us,  somewhat  both  past  and 
present,  such  event  could  not  possibly  have  been  at  all.  Nor 
can  we  give  the  whole  account  of  any  one  thing  whatever  ;  of 
all  its  causes,  ends  and  necessary  adjuncts — those  adjuncts,  I 
mean,  without  which  it  could  not  have  been.  By  this  most 
astonishing  connection,  these  reciprocal  correspondencies  and 
mutual  relations,  everything  which  we  see  in  the  course  of 
Nature  is  actually  brought  about.  And  things  seemingly  the 
most  insignificant  imaginable  are  perpetually  observed  to  be 
necessary  conditions  to  other  things  of  the  greatest  importance, 
so  that  any  one  thing  whatever  may,  for  aught  we  know  to  the 
contrary,  be  a  necessary  condition  to  any  other.  The  natural 
world,  then,  and  natural  government  of  it,  being  such  an  incom- 
prehensible scheme — so  incomprehensible  that  a  man  must  really, 
in  the  literal  sense,  know  nothing  at  all  who  is  not  sensible 
of  his  ignorance  in  it — this  immediately  suggests,  and  strongly 
shews  the  credibility,  that  the  moral  world  and  government  of 
it  may  be  so  too.  Indeed,  the  natural  and  moral  constitution 
and  government  of  the  world  are  so  connected  as  to  make  up 
together  but  one  scheme  ;  and  it  is  highly  probable  that  the 
first  is  formed  and  carried  on  merely  in  subserviency  to  the 
latter  ;  as  the  vegetable  world  is  for  the  animal,  and  organized 
bodies  for  minds.  But  the  thing  intended  here  is,  without 
inquiring  how  far  the  administration  of  the  natural  world  is 
subordinate  to  that  of  the  moral,  only  to  observe  the  credibility 
that  one  should  be  analogous  or  similar  to  the  other ;  that  there- 
fore every  act  of  the  divine  justice  and  goodness  may  be  sup- 


316  REVELATION. 

posed  to  look  much  beyond  itself  and  its  immediate  object ; 
may  have  some  reference  to  other  parts  of  God's  moral  adminis- 
tration, and  to  a  general  moral  plan  ;  and  that  every  circum- 
stance of  this  His  moral  government  may  be  adjusted  beforehand 
with  a  view  to  the  whole  of  it. 

As  we  read  this  passage  we  may  see  how  much  truth 
there  is  in  the  concession  or  assertion  which  it  is  just 
now  the  fashion  to  make  with  so  much  rashness  or 
generosity — that,  so  far  from  a  special  revelation  being 
impossible  or  incredible,  revelation  is  an  everyday 
occurrence.  Not  in  the  poetic  musings  of  "  the  melan- 
choly Jaques,"  but  in  sober  prose,  everything  (we 
are  told)  is  a  revelation ;  and  old-fiishioned  Christian 
apologists  have  been  in  error  not  because  they  affirmed 
too  much,  but  because  they  affirmed  too  little.  I 
think  this  is  much  more  than  a  mistake  in  terminology. 
The  fact  is  that  the  phenomena  of  Nature  are  not  the 
removers  of  a  veil :  they  are  the  very  veil  to  be  removed. 
Underneath  them  lies  concealed  the  divine  character 
and  will.  They  do  not  tell  their  own  secret;  it  is 
only  by  a  violent  metaphor  that  they  can  be  supposed 
so  much  as  to  know  that  there  is  a  secret  to  tell.  It 
is  only  by  the  light  of  our  human  nature,  as  disclosed 
in  consciousness,  including  conscience  and  will  and 
intelligence,  that  we  reach  the  discovery  of  a  "  course 
and  constitution  of  Nature."  It  is  the  constitutive  and 
regulative  power  of  reason  in  ourselves  which  enables 
us  to  discover  that  there  is  a  government  in  Nature; 
and  to  mistake  the  multitudinous  phenomena  by 
which  we  are  surrounded  for  revelations,  is  exactly  like 
mistaking  the  riddle  itself  for  the  solution  of  the 
riddle.  On  the  other  hand,  they  serve  the  purpose  of 
hints  or  suggestions   by  which   the  solution  of  the 


KEVELATION. 


317 


riddle  is  made  more  and  more  easy.  Tims  the  habits 
of  earthworms,  the  fangs  and  venom  of  a  rattlesnake, 
and  such-like,  though  the  knowledge  of  them  is  not 
necessary  for  the  purpose,  yet  when  we  come  to  know 
them,  do  contribute  to  our  firm  belief,  and  even  positive 
discovery,  that  there  is  a  "course  or  constitution  of 
Nature"  as  distinguished  from  isolated,  disconnected 
phenomena.  But  when  Agassiz  says — I  am  indebted 
to  a  friend  for  the  quotation,  which  I  have  not  verified 
— or  if  he  says,  "A  physical  fact  is  as  sacred  as  a  moral 
principle,"  he  is  using  language  which,  to  me,  is  either 
unintelligible  or  absurd.  Is  a  snail  as  "  sacred  "  as  "  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount "  ? 

Given,  then,  the  assumption,  whencesoever  derived, 
of  "  an  intelligent  Author  of  Nature,  with  a  character 
and  a  will";  our  own  nature,  including  senses,  in- 
tellect, emotions,  will,  conscience ;  and  an  innumerable 
multitude  of  phenomena  of  all  kinds,  and  manifestly 
related  to  each  other  in  all  kinds  of  ways ;  we  arrive 
at  the  following  discoveries :  There  is  a  course  or  con- 
stitution of  Nature,  "  a  scheme,  system  or  constitution, 
whose  parts  correspond  to  each  other,  and  to  a  whole  " 
(Analogy,  p.  131).  We  are  under  a  government  both 
natural  and  moral.  We  are  "rewarded  or  punished 
respectively  for  all  that  behaviour  here  which  we  com- 
prehend under  the  words  virtuous  or  vicious,  morally 
good  or  evil.    Our  present  life  is  a  probation,  a  state  of 

trial  and  of  discipline The  world  is  in  a  state 

of  apostasy  and  wickedness,  and  consequently  of  ruin 

the  sense  both  of  our  condition  and  duty  being 

greatly  corrupted  amongst  men"  {A7udogi/,Y>-p.  10-11). 
There  is  a  universal  and  ineradicable  belief  that  "man- 
kind is  appointed  to  live  in  a  future  state,"  and  that 


318  REVELATION. 

the  consequences  of  our  conduct  here  will  extend  to 
that  future  state.  The  Author  of  Nature  is  good, 
having  so  constituted  us  that  obedience  and  virtue  pro- 
mote our  happiness.  He  is  also  righteous,  inexorably 
punishing  disobedience  and  vice.  We  are  exposed  to 
suffering  by  the  misconduct  of  others,  because  we  form 
part  of  a  constitution  or  system,  and  are  not  simply 
isolated  individuals.  The  consequences  of  wrong- 
doing cannot  be  removed  by  mere  repentance,  however 
sincere.  The  consequences  of  wrongdoing  are  very 
often  and  very  seriously  diminished,  or  wholly  removed, 
by  the  aid  of  others;  which  aid  often  involves  severe 
suffering  on  the  part  of  those  who  seek  to  benefit  the 
wrongdoer.  These,  I  think,  are  the  discoveries — and  I 
think  all  the  discoveries — of  Natural  Religion;  and  we 
find,  on  the  side  of  practical  Natural  Religion,  prayers 
and  sacrifices  and  various  rites  and  ceremonies  founded 
on  one  or  other  of  the  above-named  discoveries.  None 
of  these  truths,  however,  are  revelations,  properly  so 
called.  They  are  found  out  by  ourselves  duly  and 
carefully  examining  given  facts  by  the  aid  of  given 
faculties.  It  is,  however,  manifestly  possible — on  the 
primary  assumption  of  "  an  intelligent  Author  of 
Nature" — that  they  might  be  both  revelations  and  dis- 
coveries ;  revealed  to  some,  and  discovered  by  others ; 
first  discovered,  and  then  in  addition  clearly  revealed. 
But,  as  discoveries,  the  truths  enumerated  above  seem 
to  me  to  exhaust  the  doctrines  of  Natural  Religion. 

Now,  when  we  carefully  consider  these  discoveries  or 
doctrines  of  Natural  Religion,  we  perceive  at  once  these 
two  facts:  first,  they  differ  very  widely  indeed  from 
the  discoveries  and  doctrines  of  natural  science ;  and 
second,  they  are  pitifully  inadequate  for  the  moral  and 


REVELATION.  319 

spiritual  guidance  of  human  beings.      In   this   last 
respect  they  are  very  good,  so  far  as  they,  go,  but  they 
go  a  very  little   way.     First,  then,  they  differ  very 
widely  from  the  doctrines  of  natural  science.     So  far 
as  they  include  facts,  they  are  scientifically  verifiable. 
Thus,    for    instance,    in    certain    circumstances,   we 
demonstrably  suffer  pain  or  enjoy  pleasure.     But  it  is 
impossible  to  express  the  doctrines  of  Natural  Religion 
without  employing  terms  which  are  wholly  alien  to 
physical  science;  which  to  physical  science  are  neither 
true  nor  false,  or,  to  speak  more  accurately,  convey  no 
meaning    whatever.       Thus  the  terms    government, 
scheme,   constitution,   moral,   right,   wrong,    reward, 
punishment,  are  to  physical  science  absolutely  meaning- 
less.    Physical  science  can,  and  does,  conduct  all  its 
processes  of   discovery  and    arrangement  without  a 
single  thought  either  of  God  or  of  conscience,  and  its 
conclusions  would  be  as  valid  on  the  hypothesis  of 
Atheism  as  on   the  hypothesis  of  the  truth  of  the 
Christian  religion.     The  discoveries  of  physical  science 
are  the  raw  material  of  natural  theology.     That  is  to 
say,  natural  theology  deals  with  the  discoveries  of  the 
physical  sciences  on  a  certain  hypothesis,  and  for  a 
certain  purpose :  on  the  hypothesis  of  "an  intelligent 
Autlior  of  Nature,  with  a  character  and  a  will,"  and 
for  the  purpose  of  discovering  what  that  character  and 
will  are,  and  how  we  can  conform  ourselves  to  the  one 
and  obey  the  other.     If  Physical  Science  could  first 
borrow  from  7netaphysics  the  conception  of  fo7'ce,  and 
some  others — which  in  fact  she  does — all  her  discov- 
eries might  be  made  and  arranged  by  means  of  the 
senses  and  the  intellect;   the  discoveries  of  natural 
theology  require,  in  addition  to  these,  conscience  and 
will. 


320  REVELATION. 

But,  secondly,  even  the  most  exhaustive  statements 
of  the  doctrines  of  Natural  Eeligion  are  pitiably  in- 
adequate for  the  moral  and  spiritual  guidance  of 
mankind,  to  say  nothing  of  comfort  and  hope  and 
joyous  confidence.  We  find  ourselves  in  the  presence 
of  a  divine  Being  whose  power,  at  least  in  relation  to 
our  own,  is  infinite.  He  is,  indeed,  good  and  gracious ; 
but  He  is  also  inexorably  just.  If  we  do  right  we  may 
be  happy — though  liable  to  suffering  from  the  wrong- 
doing of  others.  If  we  do  wrong,  even  ignorantly,  we 
must  certainly  and  acutely  sufier.  We  are  in  the 
midst,  are  a  part,  of  a  scheme  or  constitution  of  things 
so  vast  and  so  complicated  that  it  is  immeasurably 
beyond  our  comprehension ;  and  the  wrong  that  we  do 
or  that  others  do  may,  for  what  we  know,  extend  over 
all  space  and  last  through  all  time.  Remedial  agencies, 
and  the  mediatory  good  offices  of  our  fellow-men, 
somewhat  mitigate  our  sufferings  and  our  alarms.  But 
we  cannot  escape  the  irresistible  belief  in  a  future  life, 
where  our  condition  will  be  determined  by  our  life 
on  earth.  Emphatically  "we  are  strangers  on  the 
earth";  and  yet  an  accurate  knowledge  of  this  life 
is  an  indispensable  preparation  for  the  next.  Can 
there  possibly  be  anything  in  our  relations  to  God  at 
all  corresponding  to  that  aid  which  we  receive  from  the 
mediation,  or  even  "the  vicarious  sufferings,"  of  our 
fellow-men  in  this  earthly  life  ?  Above  all,  is  our  confi- 
dent belief  in  a  future  life  a  mere  baseless  dream  ?  If 
not,  what  is  the  future  life  ?  How  shall  we  be  judged  ? 
how  acquitted  or  how  condemned?  how,  were  such  a 
thing  only  possible,  pardoned  or  redeemed  ?  These 
are  the  questions  which  the  discoveries  of  Natural 
Religion  at  once  suggest  and  leave  unanswered ;  and 


REVELATION.  ^wl 

therefore  the  prevailing  tone  of  Natural  Eeligion  is 
an  almost  intolerable  gloom,  a  paralyzing  terror  *  At 
this  point  discovery  is  exlumsted  ;  if  our  fears  are  to  be 

*See  on  this  point,  the  first  part  [On  Natural  Religion)  of 
the  last  (Xth)   chapter    of  Newman's  Orammar  of  Assent. 
Also   see  Sellar's  Roman  Poets  of  the  Republic,  Chapter  XUL, 
on  The  Religious  Attitude  and  Moral  Teaching  of  Lucret^us. 
Religion,  to  Lucretius,  is  a  hideous  misery.     The  following 
passage  everybody  knows;  I  give  it   in  Munro's  admirable 
translation :    "  This  is  what  I  fear  herein,  lest  haply  you  should 
fancy  that  you  are  entering  on  unholy  grounds  of  reason  and 
treading  the  path  of  sin;  whereas  on  the  contrary  o  ten  and 
often  that  heinous  religion  has  given  birth  to  sinful  and  unholy 
deeds      Thus  in  Aulis  the  chosen  chieftains  of  the  Danai,  fore- 
most of  men,  foully  polluted  with  Iphianassa's  blood  the  altar  of 
the  Trivian  maid.     Soon  as  the  fillet  encircling  her  maiden 
tresses  shed  itseK  in  equal  lengths  adown  each  cheek,  and  soon 
as  she  saw  her  father  standing  sorrowful  before  the  altars  and 
beside  him  the  ministering  priests  hiding  the  knife,  and  her 
countrymen  at  sight  of  her  shedding  tears,  speechless  in  terror 
she  dropped  down  on  her  knees  and  sank  to  the  ground,     ^or 
aught  in  such  a  moment  could  it  avail  the  luckless  girl  that  she 
had  first  bestowed  the  name  of  father  on  the  king.     For,  lifted 
up  in  the  hands  of  the  men,  she  was  carried  shivering  to  the 
altars,  not  after  due  performance  of  the  customary  rites  to  be 
escorted  by  the  clear-ringing  bridal  song,  but  in  the  very  season 
of  marriage,  stainless  maid  raid  the  stain  of  blood,  to  fall  a  sad 
victim  by  the  sacrificing  stroke  of  a  father,  that  thus  a  happy 
and  prosperous  departure  might  be  granted  to  the  fleet,     bo 
great  the  evils  to  which  religion  could  prompt !"     But  even  if 
Lucretius  had  been  able  to  deliver  men  from  the  dire  supersti- 
tion which  peopled  the  next  world  with  horrors,  he  could  not 
lighten  its  darkness  nor  fill  up  its  cold  and  appalling  vacuum. 
What  an  exquisite  pathos  is  in  these  three  lines  !- 

lam  jam  non  domus  accipiet  te  Iffita,  neque  uxor 
Optima,  nee  dulces  occurrent  oscula  nati 
Prseripere  et  tacita  pectus  dulcedine  tangent. 
^|j ;  yes— and  there  is  nothing  after  ! 


322  REVELATION. 

allayed,  our  ignorance  dispelled,  the  intricacies  of  our 
duty  unraveled,  it  must  be  by  that  other  mode  of  re- 
moving the  veil  from  hidden  truth — viz.:  Revel ATioir. 
And  as  men  have  not  only  exhausted  their  powers  of 
discovery,  but  also  their  powers  of  communicating  what 
they  have  discovered  to  others,  the  only  revelation 
that  can  possibly  avail  us  must  be  a  Revelation 
EEOM  God. 

When  we  come  to  the  question,  Has  a  revelation  from 
God  been  given  to  us  to  complement  our  own  discoveries? 
— which  discoveries  are  the  matter  or  contents  of  Natural 
Religion — we  must  keep  steadily  in  mind  the  difference, 
already  explained,  between  a  discovery  and  a  revelation  ; 
a  discovery  is  our  own  work,  a  revelation  is  the  work 
of  another  on  our  hehalf.  Moreover,  we  must  remem- 
ber that  we  come  to  the  consideration  of  this  question 
with  the  assumptions  and  discoveries  of  Natural 
Religion.  Those  who  repudiate  Natural  Religion  I 
leave  for  the  present  out  of  consideration. 

But  though,  by  this  very  hypothesis,  Natural  Religion 
has  quite  exhausted  its  resources,  it  has  left  us  with 
hopes  and  reasonable  expectations  which  it  was  itself 
unable  to  satisfy.  If  God  be  good,  for  instance,  it  is 
not  unreasonable  to  expect  that  He  will  not  "  hide  His 
commandments  from  us."  If  He  be  righteous,  it  is 
not  unreasonable  to  expect  that  He  will  enable  us  to 
do  His  will,  to  conform  ourselves  to  His  righteousness. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  long  series  of  lawgivers  and 
prophets  claim  to  have  received  revelations,  not  to  have 
made  discoveries,  which  are  exactly  adapted  to  secure 
for  us  those  blessings  of  which  we  are  so  deeply  in 
need.  Now,  surely,  on  the  assumptions  and  discoveries 
of  Natural  Religion,  this  is  not  impossible.     If  God 


REVELATION.  323 

could  create  us — which  manifestly  He  has  done,  lor 
here  we  are — if  He  has  left  in  our  way  the  materials  by 
means  of  which  we  could  discover  the  truths  of  Natural 
Religion — and  this  is  an  admitted  ftict — He  certainly 
could  supplement  or  complement  these  gracious  opera- 
tions by  distinctly  telling  us,  by  chosen  messengers, 
what  the  real  spiritual  meaning  is  of  the  phenomena 
among  which  we  are  placed ;  together  with  such  further 
instruction  as  may  sufficieyitly  answer  the  questions  and 
solve  the  difficulties  with  which  Natural  Religion  is 
incompetent  to  deal.  What  we  should  expect,  setting 
out  from  Natural  Religion,  would  be  a  revelation  of 
truths  necessary  to  our  salvation;  some  clear  teaching 
about  the  future  state ;  rules  for  the  guidance  of  our 
lives,  accurate  information  of  the  way  in  which  we  may 
be  delivered  from  the  curse  and  bondage  of  sin,  and 
brought  into  blessed  communion  with  our  Father  in 
Heaven,  and  so  also  with  our  brethren  upon  earth. 
The  human  faculties  themselves  are  abundantly  suffi- 
cient for  the  discovery  of  the  truths  of  natural  science  ; 
for  this,  therefore,  no  revelation  is  necessary,  nor  perhaps 
desirable.  We  need  revelation  when  discovery  is 
exhausted— and  especially,  not  to  say  only,  to  answer 
the  questions  about  the  moral  government  of  the  world 
which  Natural  Religion  is  insufficient  to  solve.  A 
revelation  could  not  have  consisted  in  the  production 
of  a  new  set  of  phenomena,  to  be  discovered  and  applied, 
even  if  such  phenomena  had  been  produced — which 
they  have  not;  nor  in  the  mere  exaltation  of  existing 
human  faculties,  of  which,  also,  there  is  no  evidence.  It 
is  claimed  to  have  been  a  series  of  direct  communications 
from  God,  to  chosen  messengers  and  representatives,  of 
new  and  otherwise  undiscoverable  truths,  necessary  for 


324  ■  REVELATION. 

onr  complete  guidance  as  moral  and  responsible  beings, 
and  for  onr  redemption  from  the  sin  and  folly  in  which 
we  find  ourselves  involved.  To  be  available  for  all 
mankind,  these  communications  must  have  been,  and 
were,  recorded  in  "  books,"  and  also  embodied  in  the 
institutions  and  ritual  of  the  Jewish  and  Christian 
Churches.  In  other  words,  the  written  record  of  the 
special  revelations  of  God  to  man  of  truths  necessary 
to  his  salvation  is  contained  in  the  Sacred  Scriptures, 
and  in  the  Sacred  Scriptures  only.  This  is,  I  believe, 
the  uniform  teaching  of  the  Catholic  Church ;  though 
sometimes  the  Sacred  Scriptures  are  represented  as 
leing  what  they  do,  in  very  fact,  contain.  Whether 
this  account  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures  is  the  uniform 
teaching  of  the  Catholic  Church,  everywhere  and 
always,  or  not,  it  is  indisputably  the  teaching  both  of 
the  Roman  and  Anglican  Churches. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Anglican  and  American  Church 
on  the  Holy  Scriptures  is  defined  in  the  sixth  of  the 
Articles  of  Religion  : 

Holy  Scripture  containeth  all  things  necessary  to  salvation  ; 
so  that  whatsoever  is  not  read  therein,  nor  may  be  proved  thereby, 
is  not  to  be  required  of  any  man  that  it  should  be  believed  as 
an  article  of  the  faith,  or  be  thought  requisite  or  necessary  to 
salvation.  In  the  name  of  the  Holy  Scripture  we  do  undei-stand 
those  canonical  books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  of  whose 
authority  was  never  any  doubt  in  the  Church 

All  the  books  of  the  New  Testament,  as  they  are  commonly 
received,  we  do  receive,  and  account  them  canonical. 

There  is  a  curious  ambiguity  in  the  wording  of  this 
article.  It  distinguishes  "canonical"  books  from 
"  Holy  Scripture."  For  it  is  as  certain  as  any  histori- 
cal fact  can  be  that  several  of  "  the  books  of  the  New 


REVELATION. 


325 


Testament,  as  they  are  commonly  received,"  are  not 
"books  ....  of  whose  authority  was  never  any 
doubt  in  the  Church." 

The  doctrine  of  the  Koman  Church  on  the  Holy 
Scriptures  is  defined  by  the  Council  of  Trent  (^Sessio 
IV.  Decretum  de  Oanonicis  Scripturis).  This  decree 
is  supposed  to  differ  very  widely  from  our  Sixth 
Article  of  Religion ;  and  Bishop  Browne,  in  his  Exjjo- 
sition  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  makes  use  of  the 
Tridentiue  Decree  partly  for  the  purpose  of  showing 
what  our  reformers  intended  to  exclude  or  to  deny. 
"This  [Tridentine]  decree,"  he  says,  "declares  that 
'  the  truth  is  contained  in  the  written  books  and  in  the 
unwritten  traditions,  which,  having  been  received  by 
the  Apostles,  either  from  the  mouth  of  Christ  Himself, 
or  from  the  dictates  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  were  handed 
down  even  to  us' ;  and  that  the  Council  'receives  and 
venerates  Avith  equal  feeling  of  imtij  and  reverence  all 
the  books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament,  since  one 
God  was  the  Author  of  them  both,  and  also  the  traditions, 
relating  as  well  to  faith  as  to  morals,  as  having,  either 
from  the  mouth  of  Christ  Himself,  or  from  the  dicta- 
tion of  the  Holy  Ghost,  been  preserved  by  continuous 
succession  in  the  Catholic  Church.'  "*    It  seems  to  me 

» The  following  is  the  exact  text  of  the  Tridentine  Decree: 
Sacrosancta  cecumenica  et  general  is  Tridentina  Synodus  .... 
hoc  sibi  perpetuo  ante  oculos  proponens,  ut  sublatis  erroribus 
puritas  ipsa  evangelii  in  ecclesia  conservetur,  quod  promissum 
ante  per  Prophetas  in  Scripturis  Sanctis  Dominus  noster  Jesus 
Christus  Dei  Filius  proprio  ore  primum  promulgavit,  deinde  per 
suos  Apostolos  tanquam  fontem  omnis  et  salutaris  veritatis  et 
raorum  discipline  omni  creaturas  prajdicari  jussit ;  perspieieusque 
hanc  yeritatem  et  disciplinam  contineri  in  libris  scriptis  et  sine 
scripto  traditionibus,  qua?  ipsius  Christiore  ab  Apostolis  accepta3, 


326  REVELATION. 

that  any  traditions  that  could  be  identified  as  accuratehj 
corres]Jonding  to  the  description  given  above  could  be 
most  certainly  "proved  by  "  Holy  Scripture  to  have  the 
very  same  authority  which  belongs  to  Holy  Scripture 
itself.  Nor  can  it  possibly  be  denied  that  our  Church 
recognizes  the  very  great  importance  of  tradition,  at 
least  as  a  quasi-authoritative  guide  in  the  interpretation 
of  the  written  Word.*  It  is  extremely  hazardous  to 
attempt  to  determine  what  the  i^itention  of  the  com- 
pilers of  our  Church  Formularies  may  have  been.  If 
by  the  intention  of  a  number  of  persons  is  meant  what 
each  and  all  of  them  desired,  neither  less  nor  more,  it 
may  safely  be  affirmed  that  the  compilers  of  our  Church 
Formularies  had  no  intention.  For  my  own  part,  I 
accept  the  informal  decision  of  the  Bishops  who  repre- 
sented the  Church  of  England  at  the  Savoy  Conference  : 
"  It  was  the  wisdom  of  our  reformers  to  draw  up  such 
a  liturgy  as  neither  Eomanist  nor  Protestant  could 
justly  except  against."  f 

It  is  implied  in  the  very  term  revelation  that  it  is 
something  imparted  to  us  in  addition  to  what  we  could 
have  discovered  by  the  unaided  exercise  of  our  own 

aut  ab  ipsis  Apostolis,  Spiritu  Sancto  dictante,  quasi  per  maniis 
traditae  ad  nos  usque  pervenerunt ;  orthodoxoruin  Patrum 
exempla  secuta,  omnes  libros  tarn  veteris  quam  novi  testamenti, 
quum  utriusque  unus  Deus  sit  auetor,  nee  non  traditiones  ip- 
sas,  turn  ad  fidem,  turn  ad  mores  pertinentes,  tanquam  vel 
ore  tenus  a  Christo,  vel  a  Spiritu  Sancto  dictatas,  et  continua 
suecessione  in  Ecclesia  Catholica  conservatas,  pari  pietatis 
aff ectu  ac  reverentia  suseipit  et  veneratur. ' ' 

*See  Newman,  Via  Iledia  i.,  288-289,  and  the  passages 
therein  referred  to.  Newman's  criticisms  of  his  own  Anglican 
writings  are  in  the  highest  degree  instructive. 

t  Cardwell's  Conferences  on  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  p. 
388. 


REVELATION.  327 

faculties,  or  by  the  exercise  of  those  faculties  aided 
only  by  that  general  divine  support  which  is  in  fact 
necessary  for  their  continued  existence.  Moreover,  we 
must  distinguish  revelation  from  inspiration ;  by  which 
last  term  I  understand  some  exaltation  or  purification 
of  the  human  faculties,  intellectual  or  moral,  or  both, 
by  which  the  inspired  is  enabled  (to  express  it  briefly) 
to  make  the  very  most  of  such  materials  as  are  within 
Ms  reach.  Hence  even  inspiration,  dealing  only  with 
the  scheme  and  constitution  of  Nature,  could  never 
rise  above  Natural  Theology.  And  this  seems  to. me 
to  be  what  S.  Clement  of  Alexandria  means  in  certain 
passages  which  have  been  interpreted  by  Mr.  Allen 
{The  Continuity  of  Christian  Thought,  pp.  47-48)  in 
a  very  different  and  almost  opposite  sense.     Mr.  Allen 


Because  Deity  indwelt  in  humanity,  and  the  human  reason 
partook  by  its  very  nature  of  that  which  was  divine,  Clement 
was  forced  to  see  in  the  highest  products  of  the  reason  the  fruit 
of  divine  revelation.  He  makes  no  distinction  between  Natural 
and  Revealed  Religion,  between  what  man  discovers  and  God 
reveals.  All  that  is  true  and  well  said  in  Greek  philosophy  was 
as  truly  given  by  divine  revelation  as  was  the  moral  truth  pro- 
claimed by  Jewish  legislators  and  prophets.  The  higher  activi- 
ties of  human  thought  and  reflection  are  only  the  process  by 
which  the  revelation  of  truth  is  conveyed  to  man,  and  inspira- 
tion is  the  God-given  insight  which  enables  men  to  read  aright 
the  truth  which  God  reveals. 

In  confirmation  of  his  exposition  of  S.  Clement's  doc- 
trine he  refers  to  Exhort,  vi.,  Stromat.  i.  5  and  i.  10.  The 
value  of  Mr.  Allen's  book  would  have  been  very  greatly 
increased — possibly  also,  in  some  cases,  diminished* — if 

*I  by  no  means  intend  this  for  mere  sarcasm.  It  may  well 
happen  that  a  mere  reference  may  be  very  infelicitous,  and  even 


328  REVELATION. 

references  to  his  authorities  had  been  very  mnch  more 
numerous.  It  is  not  always  easy,  partly  for  want  of 
such  references,  to  decide  whether  he  is  stating  the 
opinion  of  another  or  simply  expressing  his  own.  But 
I  am  quite  unable  to  discover  anything  m  the  jMSsages 
referred  to  in  this  particular  case  which  in  the  least 
justifies  Mr.  Allen's  comment.  In  these  very  passages 
S.  Clement  seems  to  refer  the  wisdom  of  the  philoso- 
phers to  their  acquaintance,  directly  or  indirectly, 
with  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  Thus,  for  instance 
(Strom,  i.  19),  after  quoting  Plato,  he  immediately 
adds,  "Does  he  not  then  seem  to  declare  from  the 
Hebrew  Scripttires  the  righteous  man's  hope,  through 
faith,  after  death  ?"  And  at  the  very  beginning  of 
the  same  chapter,  after  quoting  Acts  xvii.  22-28,  he 
proceeds:  "Whence  it  is  evident  that  the  Apostle,  by 
availing  himself  of  poetical  examples  from  the  Phce- 
iiomena  of  Aratus,  approves  of  what  had  been  well 
spoken  by  the  Greeks ;  and  intimates  that,  by  the  un- 
known God,  God  the  Creator  was  in  a  roundabout  way 
worshipped  by  the  Greeks ;  but  that  it  was  necessary 
by  positive  knoioledge  to  apprehend  and  learn  Him  by  the 
Son."  And  at  the  end  of  the  chapter,  in  the  midst  of 
sundry  mystical  interpretations  of  passages  from  the 
Proverbs,  he  says:  "I  do  not  think  that  Philosophy 
directly  declares  the  Word,  although  in  many  instances 
Philosophy  attempts  and  persuasively  teaches  us 
probable  arguments."     Moreover,  the  very  first  para- 

divert  the  attention  from  the  true  meaning  of  a  writer  who  has 
in  his  mind  a  u'hole  bodij  of  literature  from  which  his  opinions 
are  really  derived.  This  may  explain  Mr.  Allen's  general 
omission  of  references — which  nevertheless  is,  I  think,  unfortu- 
nate, considering  what  sort  of  readers  alone  he  is  likely  to 
secure. 


REVELATION.  329 

graph  of  Chapter  V.  seems  to  be  absolutely  contra- 
dictory of  Mr.  Allen's  statement  that  S.  Clement 
"  makes  no  distinction  between  Natural  and  Revealed 
Eeligion,  between  what  man  discovers  and  God  reveals." 
"Accordingly,"  says  S.  Clement,  "before  the  advent 
of  the  Lord,  philosophy  was  necessary  to  the  Greeks 
for  righteousness.  And  now  it  becomes  conducive  to 
piety;  being  a  kind  of  preparatory  training  to  those 
ivlio  attain  to  faith  through  demonstratio7i.  '  For  thy 
foot,'  it  is  said,  '  will  not  stumble,  if  thou  refer  what  is 
good,  whether  belonging  to  the  Greeks  or  to  us,  to 
Providence.'  For  God  is  the  cause  of  all  good  things ; 
but  of  some  priniarili/,  as  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ment ;  of  others  by  consequence,  as  philosophy.  Per- 
chance, too,  philosophy  was  given  to  the  Greeks 
directly  and  primarily  till  the  Lord  should  call  the 
Greehs.  For  this  was  a  schoolmaster  to  bring  'the 
Hellenic  mind,'  as  the  law  the  Hebrews,  'to  Christ.' 
Philosophy,  therefore,  was  a  preparation,  paving 
the  way  for  him  wlio  is  perfected  hy  Christ."  What 
is  this  but  saying  that  our  own  discoveries  are 
not  sufficient;  and  that  no  energy  of  philosophic 
thought  can  enable  us  to  dispense  with  those  positive 
and  primary  revelations  which  God  has  given  in  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments— in  the  truth  by  Him  made 
known  to  man,  and  in  those  Testaments  recorded  ? 
Nor  need  we  fear  that  that  divine  assistance  which 
God  granted  to  every  man  in  order  that  he  might 
attain  to  Natural  Religion  will  be  withheld  from  any 
of  us  when  we  devote  ourselves  with  seriousness  and 
humility  to  the  study  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures. 

It  seems  to  me  an  almost  incredible  perversity  of 
intellect  which  leads  men  to  object  that  the  special 


330  EEVELATION. 

revelations  of  God  to  man  have  been  stored  np  for  ns 
in  a  hook  and  in  a  Ohurch ;  inasmuch  as  this  is  the 
only  conceivable  way  in  which  they  could  have  been 
either  preserved  or  propagated.  A  revelation  to  each 
man  in  the  depths  of  his  own  being  is  mere  mysticism, 
and  as  a  matter  of  fact  has  certainly  not  been  imparted. 
This  vague  mysticism  seems  to  me  the  great  defect — 
as  it  is  a  chief  characteristic — of  the  teaching  of  Mr. 
F.  D.  Maurice;  it  renders  a  very  large  part  of  that 
teaching  practically  inoperative,  and  to  a  very  large 
extent  wholly  unintelligible.  That  distinguished  divine 
seems  positively  to  resent  and  suspect  clearness  of 
statement.  He  regards  both  the  Bible  and  the  Church 
with  the  prof oundest  reverence;  but  the  moment  you 
try  to  explain  ivhat  definite  service  they  render  to  you, 
he  at  once  assures  you  that  you  understand  neither  the 
one  nor  the  other.  Take,  for  instance,  this  most 
characteristic  passage  from  a  sermon  preached  at 
Lincoln's  Inn  Chapel  on  the  first  Sunday  after  the 
Epiphany  (  What  is  Revelation  f  pp.  8-10.  The  Collect 
referred  to  is  the  Collect  for  the  Epiphany.  If  any- 
body has  ever  discovered  the  ansiuer  to  the  question 
which  is  the  title  of  this  book  from  the  book  itself,  he 
must  be  possessed  of  superb nman  ingenuity). 

This  example  is  so  certainly  meant  for  us,  and  is  so  fearful, 
that  there  is  need  continually  to  press  the  truth  which  the  Col- 
lect suggests.  It  is  the  God  who  manifested  His  only-begotten 
Son  to  the  Gentiles  who  does  only,  who  can  only,  manifest  His 
Son  to  us.  No  book  can  do  it,  be  it  ever  so  divine  ;  no  Church 
authority  or  tradition  can  do  it,  be  it  ever  so  venerable.  We 
must  know,  not  the  book,  not  the  tradition,  but  Him  by  faith. 
We  must  trust  Him  as  we  trust  a  father  ;  that  is  what  the 
Divine  Book  tells  us  to  do,  that  is  what  the  Church  tells  us  to 
do,  and  its  authority  and  its  traditions  belie  their  own  origin, 


REVELATION.  331 

contradict  themselves  and  become  blasphemies,  if  they  speak 
otherwise.  If  we  believe  in  God  habitually  as  a  living  Person, 
if  we  seek  Him  as  a  refuge  from  our  own  atheism,  from  our  own 
idolatry,  from  that  in  us  which  is  most  utterly  contraiy  to  Him 
— our  self-will,  our  pride,  our  spite  and  malice — we  shall  know 
Him  really,  as  one  knows  a  friend,  not  by  seeing  Him  with  the 
eyes,  not  by  getting  reports  of  Him  or  traditions  of  Him  from 
others,  be  those  reports  ever  so  trustworthy,  be  those  traditions 
ever  so  reasonable  and  credible,  but  by  experiencing  His  help, 
by  finding  out  how  much  better  He  is  than  we  are,  and  yet  how 
well  He  understands  what  we  are  and  cares  for  us.  To  exchange 
,  for  this  practical  faith ,  which  rests  upon  God  Himself  and  H  is  own 
manifestation  of  Himself  in  the  Son  of  God  and  the  Son  of  man, 
a  belief  in  the  Holy  Book,  is  to  disobey  all  the  warnings  of  that 
Book,  to  show  that  we  do  not  know  what  is  in  it,  that  we  prize 
it  as  a  name  or  a  watchword,  not  for  that  which  it  teaches.  To 
exchange  for  this  practical  faith  a  belief  in  the  Church — a 
notion  that  the  Church  will  tell  us  the  right  thing  and  will 
bring  us  to  heaven — is  to  show  that  we  do  not  know  what  it  is 
to  be  members  of  a  Church,  or  what  a  Church  is  good  for  ;  that 
we  do  not  prize  it  because  it  leads  us  to  the  Rock  on  which  it 
stands,  to  the  God  who  has  called  it  out  to  be  a  witness  of  His 
revelation  of  Himself  to  mankind,  of  His  redemption  of  man- 
kind, but  because  we  suppose  it  is  ours,  and  that  it  gives  us  some 
privilege  and  glory  which  other  men  want.  This  is  to  exalt 
ourselves  and  to  deny  God. 

There  is  a  mystic,  poetic  beauty,  a  soft,  mellowing 
haze,  in  this  passage  which  we  must  all  appreciate; 
but  what,  after  all,  does  it  mean  ?  Who  has  ever  asked 
us  to  transfer  our  trust  in  God  Himself  to  the  Book 
which  contains  His  message;  or  who  has  ever  pre- 
tended that  trust  in  a  book  is  the  same  thing  as  trust 
in  a  person  ?  The  question  is  not :  Shall  we  believe  in 
God,  or  believe  the  Book  which  contains  the  revelation 
of  His  character  and  will  ?  That  is  not  the  question, 
but  this:   Can  we  possibly  do  the  one  without  the 


332  KEVELATION. 

other?  And  the  answer  to  this  question  is:  Most  un- 
questionably "we  cannot.  We  cannot,  being  sane, 
believe  in  a  person,  trust  him,  reverence  him,  love 
him,  without  knowing  something  about  him.  You 
say  you  believe  in  God  apart  from,  wholly  independently 
of,  the  revelations  contained  in  the  Holy  Scriptures. 
Well  and  good.  But  what  do  you  know  about  Him  ? 
And  how  did  you  acquire  that  knowledge?  Clearly 
from  those  sources  from  which  are  derived  the  truths 
of  Natural  Religion ;  for  apart  from  Holy  Scripture 
these  are  the  07ily  sources  of  our  knowledge ;  and  how' 
pitiably  inadequate  they  are  we  have  already  seen. 
But  you  say :  "  No,  indeed  I  I  believe  in  God  as  re- 
vealed to  us  in  Jesus  Christ."  Very  good,  I  repeat ; 
but  what  do  you  know  about  Jesus  Christ  ?  How  do 
you  know  that  such  a  Person  ever  lived  ?  Jesus  Christ 
is  not  only  "  God  of  God,"  but  God  incarnate  j  "  made 
flesh,  and  tabernacling  among  us."  As  such — that  is 
to  say,  as  Jesus  Christ — He  came  into  the  world  at  a 
particular  time  and  place — viz. :  in  Palestine,  and  about 
nineteen  hundred  years  ago.  His  earthly  life  and 
ministry — which  were  His  revelation  of  God  to  men — 
ended  when  "  He  ascended  up  where  He  was  before." 
When  He  was  visibly,  audibly,  tangibly  in  this  world, 
multitudes  of  people  saw  Him,  heard  Him,  touched 
Him;  but  we  were  not  in  the  world  then,  and  never 
can  be  in  the  world  at  that  time  and  place.  Every- 
thing, therefore,  that  we  can  know  about  that  revela- 
tion of  God  which  is  given  us  in  the  Incarnation  must 
be  derived  from  trustworthy  records ;  and  the  only 
existing  records  are  the  Scriptures  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. 

It  is  the  doctrine  of  the  whole  Western  Church, 


REVELATION. 


333 


including  the  Anglican  and  the  American,  that  the 
Sacred  Scriptures — siipplemented  by  tradition  derived, 
hypothetically,  from  the  very  same  sources,  and  there- 
fore possessed  of  the  very  same  authority  ;  or  partly 
inter^jreted  by  traditions  regarded  as  historic  evidence 
— "  contain  all  things,"  /.  e.  all  truths,  "  necessary  to 
salvation."     But  it  is  not  the  doctrine  of  the  Western 
Church   that  the  Sacred   Scriptures  contain  nothing 
else.     This  may,  indeed,  be  aflRrmed,  or  directly  in- 
volved, in  the  creeds,  confessions  or  doctrinal  formu- 
laries of  some  extreme  Protestant  sects  ;  but  with  these 
I  am  not  concerned.     Much  less  am  I  concerned  with 
the  vague  and  inaccurate  opinions  of  wholly  irrespon- 
sible individuals.    And  it  is  of  the  greatest  importance 
to  bear  this  constantly  in  mind.     The  object  of  revela- 
tion is  to  put  us  in  possession  of  truths  necessary  to 
salvation — i.  e.,  necessary  to  our  redemption  from  sin 
and  our  spiritual  perfection.     But   these  revelations 
recorded  in   Scripture  are  inclosed  in  an   historical 
setting ;  and  this  history  explains  their  occasion,  and 
sometimes,  indirectly,  their  meaning.     But  it  is  not 
"  necessary  to  salvation  "  that  there  should  not  be  even 
the  minutest  error  in  the  mere  history.     Thus  the 
divine  government  of  Israel  was  a  fact  of  history,  in- 
cluding the  disciplinary  sojourn  in  Egypt;  and  it  may 
certainly  be  regarded  as  "  necessary  to  salvation  "  that 
we  realize  the  fact  of  a  divine  government  in  general, 
and  of  the  divine  government  of  Israel  in  particular. 
But  this  truth  is  not  at  all  affected  by  a  difierence  in  the 
calculation  of  the  exact  number  of  years  during  which 
the  Israelites  were  in  Egypt.     The   reckoning  of   S. 
Stephen  may  diflFer,  by  a  few  years,  from  the  reckoning 
in  the  Pentateucii;  but  that  difference  does  not  in  the 


331  REVELATION. 

least  affect  the  spiritual  significance  of  the  whole 
narrative.  Similarly,  no  moral  or  religious  truth  would 
be  in  the  least  imperiled  if  it  should  be  discovered 
that  the  description  of  Goliath's  armour  was  not 
minutely  accurate ;  the  length  of  his  spear  or  the 
weight  of  his  shield  are,  religiously,  a  kind  of  surplus- 
age. That  "  God  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth" 
is  a  truth  "  necessary  to  salvation " ;  but  that  He 
created  them  in  a  particular  order  or  during  a  particu- 
lar time  is  not.  Hence,  when  Mr.  Huxley  writes,  in 
his  delicious  style,  a  complete  demolition  of  Mr. 
Gladstone's  scientific  defense  of  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis,  we  may  look  on  with  perfect  unconcern. 
Hundreds  of  similar  examples  might  easily  be  given. 
But  when  we  have  exhausted  our  own  ingenuity  in 
inventing  "  difficulties  "  and  "  objections,"  or  when  we 
have  been  sufficiently  tormented  by  the  difficulties  and 
objections  urged  by  other  people  more  ingenious  than 
ourselves ;  when  we  have  spent  long  enough  time  in 
dealing  with  the  Sacred  Scriptures  as  if  they  were  no 
more  than  a  literary  or  scientific  problem;  we  are  at 
last  confronted  with  these  two  questions,  which  con- 
cern us  not  as  critics  or  logicians,  but  as  human  beings 
who  "  must  give  an  account  of  ourselves  before  God": 
Do  the  Sacred  Scriptures  contain  all  truths  necessary 
to  salvation  ?  If  they  do,  they  tire  sufficient.  Do  any 
other  books  or  sets  of  books  contain  all  truths  necessary 
to  salvation  ?  If  not,  the  Scriptures  are  necessary.'* 
For  my  own  part,  I  have  not  an  atom  of  doubt  that 
they  are  both  necessary  and  sufficient. 

■'■■  I  suppose  I  must  add,  what  everybody  with  a  grain  of  sense 
would  take  for  granted,  necessary  "  where  they  may  be  had." 
As  ive  not  only  may,  but  most  unquestionably  do,  possess  them, 
they  are — on  the  supposition — necessary  for  us. 


REVELATION.  335 

The  second  question  is  the  easier  to  answer,  and 
I  will  consider  it  first.  Is  there  any  book  or  set  of 
books  except  the  Bible  which  contains  "  all  trnths 
necessary  to  salvation"  ?  And  in  answering  this  ques- 
tion we  must  rigorously  exclude  all  books  dealing  in 
any  way  with  religion  which  are  to  a  great  extent  them- 
selves derived  from  the  Bible.  In  other  words,  we 
must  exclude  all  the  literature  of  modern  Europe. 
We  must  even  exclude — if  it  mattered,  which  it  does  not 
— the  Koran,  which  is  largely  derived  from  the  Jewish 
and  Christian  Scriptures  or  traditions.  Even  the 
works  of  professed  sceptics  are  saturated  with  Chris- 
tianity. If  that  soaring  eagle  has  been  brought  to  the 
ground,  it  has  unquestionably  been  by  arrows  winged 
by  her  own  feathers.  Hundreds  of  passages  of  Scrip- 
ture are  cited  as  "anthropomorphic,"  "anthropo- 
pathic,"  involving  a  low  morality  or  a  rudimentary 
and  false  theology.  This  is  not  the  place  for  a  minute 
exegesis  of  such  passages.  They  are  nearly  all  examples 
of  that  progressive  and  gradual  revelation  of  which  I 
have  spoken  in  the  four  Sermons  to  which  this  Supple- 
mentary Essay  is  a  note.  But  what  is  the  test  by 
which  they  are  judged  and  found  wanting  ?  Most 
unquestionably  o^Aer^or^iows  of  the  very  same  Scrip- 
ttires  from  which  they  have  been  selected  for  condem- 
nation. Whence  do  we  derive  our  clearest  knowledge 
of  the  spiritual  nature  of  God  and  His  moral  perfec- 
tions ?  If  we  want  to  refute  Moses  we  must  quote  S. 
John.  But  I  am  already  anticipating  the  answer  to 
the  other  question  with  which  I  shall  be  immediately 
confronted.  What  other  books,  then,  if  the  Bible  fail 
us,  contain  "all  things  necessary  to  salvation";  the 
truth  concerning  God ;  the  convincing  proof  of  our  own 


336  REVELATION. 

sinfulness ;  the  assurance  of  pardon,  if  we  repent  and 
amend  and  put  "our  whole  trust  and  confidence  in  God's 
mercy,"  and  avail  ourselves  of  the  means  of  recovery 
which  He  has  provided;  the  overpowering  motives 
which  shall  conquer  our  selfishness,  and  set  us  forth  on 
the  high  and  heroic  achievement  of  the  spiritual  perfec- 
tion of  which  our  nature  is  capable ;  the  assurance  of  a 
brotherhood  which  shall  enable  us  to  "lay  down  our 
lives  for  the  brethren  " ;  the  "  sure  and  certain  hope  of 
a  resurrection  to  eternal  life  "  ?  Where  else  have  we  a 
Gospel  for  manhind — not  for  philosopliers  and  for  elect 
souls,  but  for  "  barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  and  free  "  ? 
Can  we  find  it  in  Plato's  Republic,  in  the  Homeric  Poems, 
in  the  agnostic  and  utilitarian  teachings  of  Con- 
fucius, in  the  "Sacred  Books  of  the  East"?  All 
these  have  had  "  a  fair  field,"  and  many  of  them  much 
"favour."  What  would  become  of  human  society  if 
any  statesman  should  dare  to  propose,  and  any  nation 
dare  to  consent,  to  make  Plato's  Rejmblic  the  basis  of 
practical  legislation — with  its  community  of  goods  and 
women,  and  the  immense  majority  of  its  citizens  left  to 
a  hopeless  and  cheerless  life  of  drudgery  and  contempt  ? 
What  would  become  of  our  salvation — not  in  any 
narrow,  "evangelical"  sense,  but  as  meaning  our 
spiritual  perfection — if  we  seriously  believed  that  the 
amours  of  Ares  and  Aphrodite,  at  which  Homer  tells 
us  the  gods  shook  with  inextinguishable  laughter, 
were  the  manifestations  of  a  divine  perfection  which  it 
is  the  perfection  of  man  to  imitate?  What  sort  of  spirit- 
ual refinement,  what  high  ideals,  what  unearthly  beauty 
of  character  and  temper,  has  Confucius  bestowed  upon 
the  Chinese  ?  What,  at  this  very  moment,  are  the  religious 
and  the  social  conditions  of  the  inhabitants  of  India  ? 


KEVELATION.  337 

Discovery  has  been  exhausted ;  other  adequate  revelations 
there  are  none ;  if  tlie  Bible  be  not  sufficient  we  are 
left  in  hopeless  misery,  and  in  utter  ignorance  of  the 
way  of  "  eternal  life." 

Of  the  sufficiency  of  the  revelation  which  is  con- 
tained in  the  Sacred  Scriptures  I  have  spoken  already 
— I  am  only  too  conscious  how  imperfectly — in  the 
four  Sermons  to  which  this  Essay  is  a  note.  And  I 
may  remark  that  that  sufficiency  is  not  a  doubtful 
inference,  but  a  plain  fact,  which  we  know  from  wide 
observation,  from  the  sure  evidence  of  undisputed 
history,  and  from  personal  experience.  Christianity 
has  "  turned  the  world  upside  down."  The  world,  so 
far  as  it  has  been  permeated  and  saturated  with  Chris- 
tianity, is  a  world  altogether  different  from  that  of 
which  we  read  in  the  Greek  and  Eoman  historians, 
philosophers,  poets,  dramatists,  satirists ;  and  that 
difference  is  the  sufficiency  of  the  divine  revelations. 
It  is  not  simply  that  the  world  has  been  made  better, 
though  that  is  true;  but  it  has  been  made  utterly 
ashamed  of  vices  which  were  once  not  only  universal, 
but  unabashed.  "It  was  before  the  once  grave  and 
pure-minded  Senators  of  Eome — the  greatness  of 
whose  State  was  founded  on  the  sanctity  of  family 
relationships — that  the  Censor  Metellus  had  declared  in 
A.  U.  C.  602,  without  one  dissentient  murmur,  that 
marriage  could  only  be  regarded  as  an  intolerable  neces- 
sity. Before  that  same  Senate,  at  an  earlier  period,  a 
leading  Consular  had  not  scrupled  to  assert  that  there 
was  scarcely  one  among  them  all  who  had  not  ordered 
one  or  more  of  his  own  infant  children  to  be  exposed 
to  death."*     In  what  Christian  city  could  a  new  Petro- 

*  Farrar,  Tkc  Early  Days  of  Christianity,  Book  1.,  Chap.  1  ; 


338  REVELATION. 

nius  Arbiter  find  either  the  material  or  the  effrontery 
for  a  new  Satyrium  f  A  poet  whose  own  verses  furnish 
all  too  conclusive  evidence  of  the  moral  condition  of 
the  men  of  culture  and  refinement  in  his  day — and  of 
the  ivomen — tells  us  that 

"  ingenuas  didicisse  fldeliter  artes 
Emollit  mores,  nee  sinit  esse  feros."* 

But  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  manners  of  the  gentle- 
men, the  philosophers,  even  the  "ladies,"  of  the 
Eoman  Empire  at  the  time  of  the  first  propagation  of  the 
Gospel,  were  not  only  morally  loathsome,  but  savagely 
brutal. 

But  why  enlarge  upon  what  everybody  knows  ? 
The  power  of  Christianity,  of  the  truths  recorded  in 
the  Sacred  Scriptures,  is  not  an  inference,  it  is  a 
palpable  fact  that  no  one  can  deny.  It  has  created  a 
new  world,  it  has  made  millions  of  human  beings 
separately  and  individually  "new  creatures."  And  are 
we  really  to  suspend  our  judgment  about  its  inestimable 
preciousness,  nay  even  to  doubt  its  very  truth,  because 
S.  Stephen  did  not  add  up  correctly  the  years  of  the 
Egyptian  bondage,  or  because  we  cannot  understand  an 
obscure  passage  in  the  Epistle  of  S.  Jude  ?  Is  it  any 
disproof  of  the  splendid  military  genius  of  Napoleon 
that  he  sometimes  lost  a  battle,  that  many  of  his 
generals  were  far  inferior  to  himself,  that  his  manners 
were  sometimes  rough  and  his  treatment  of  women 

and  consult  the  terrific  aulliorities  by  which  he  supports  his 
statements.     What  a  world  of  meaning  is  in  these  two  lines!— 

Si  mos  antiquis  placuisset  matribus  idem, 
Gens  hominum  vitio  deperitura  fuit. 

(Ovid.  Amonim  ii.  14  ) 
*Ovid,  A>.  ex.  Fonfo,  3,  9,  47-48. 


REVELATION.  339 

unrefined  ?  The  answer  to  such  carping  criticism,  if 
anybody  were  foolish  enough  seriously  to  offer  it,  is 
simple,  intelligible,  irresistible :  it  is  the  map  of  Europe 
as  Napoleon  found  it,  and  the  map  of  Europe  as 
Napoleon  left  it. 

But  whence  came  this  new  power  into  the  world  ? 
Are  we  to  be  seriously  asked  to  believe  that  it  was  a 
stage  in  a  process  of  natural  evolution  ?  How  can  that 
be  a  stage  in  a  process  of  natural  evolution  which 
violently  arrests  the  process  ?  We  know  what  evolu- 
tion was  actually  doing  for  the  Jews,  the  Greeks,  the 
Romans,  at  that  very  time.  The  evolution  was  all 
downwards,  a  process  of  corruption.  But  I  am  arguing 
here  only  with  those  who  admit  the  primary  assump- 
tion of  "an  intelligent  Author  of  Nature,  with  a 
character  and  a  will."  For  the  rest — those  who  re- 
pudiate that  assumption — I  may  say,  in  the  words  of 
Newman:  "I  cannot  convert  men,  when  I  ask  for 
assumptions  which  they  refuse  to  grant  to  me;  and 
without  assumptions  no  one  can  prove  anything  about 
anything."  And,  again,  he  says — after  quoting  Aris- 
totle and  the  Bible  {Grammar  of  Assent,  pp.  415- 
416): 

Relying,  then,  on  these  authorities,  human  and  divine,  I  have 
no  scruple  in  beginning  the  review  I  shall  take  of  Christianity 
by  professing  to  consult  for  those  only  whose  minds  are  properly 
prepared  for  it ;  and  by  being  prepared  I  mean  those  who  are 
imbued  with  the  religious  opinions  and  sentiments  which  I 
have  identified  with  Natural  Religion.  I  do  not  address  myself 
to  those  who,  in  moral  evil  and  physical,  see  nothing  more  than 
imperfections  of  a  parallel  nature,  who  consider  that  the 
difference  in  gravity  between  the  two  is  one  of  degree  only,  not 
of  kind  ;  that  moral  evil  is  merely  the  offspring  of  physical,  and 
that  as  we  remove  the  latter  so  we  inevitably  remove  the  former  ; 


340  REVELATION. 

that  there  is  a  progress  of  the  race  which  tends  to  the  annihila- 
tion of  moral  evil ;  that  sin  is  a  bugbear,  not  a  reality  ;  that  the 
Creator  does  not  punish,  except  in  the  sense  of  correcting  ;  that 
vengeance  in  Him  would  of  necessity  be  vindictiveness  ;  that  all 
that  we  know  of  Him,  be  it  much  or  little,  is  through  the  laws 
of  Nature  ;  that  miracles  are  impossible  ;  that  prayer  to  Him  is 
a  superstition  ;  that  the  fear  of  Him  is  unmanly  ;  that  sorrow 
for  sin  is  slavish  and  abject ;  that  the  only  intelligible  worship 
of  Him  is  to  act  well  our  part  in  the  world,  and  the  only  sensi- 
ble repentance  to  do  better  in  future  ;  that  if  we  do  our  duties 
in  this  life,  we  may  take  our  chance  for  the  next ;  and  that  it 
is  of  no  use  perplexing  our  minds  about  the  future  state,  for  it 
is  all  a  matter  of  guess.  These  opinions  characterize  a  civilized 
age  ;  and  if  I  say  that  I  will  not  argue  about  Christianity  witli 
men  who  hold  them,  I  do  so,  not  as  claiming  any  right  to  be 
impatient  or  peremptory  with  any  one,  but  because  it  is  plainly 
absurd  to  attempt  to  prove  a  second  proposition  to  those  who  do 
not  admit  the  first. 


REMARKS  ON  DR.  MAUDSLEY'S  "NATURAL 

CAUSES  AND  SUPERNATURAL 

SEEMINGS." 

Dr.  Maudsley's  treatment  of  religion— lie  does  not 
deign  to  notice  that  the  Christian  religion  differs  essen- 
tially from  witchcraft  and  omens  and  the  like— is  so 
arrogant  and  indecent,  that  I  freely  admit  that  it  is 
more  than  possible  that  I  am  unfavorably  prejudiced 
against  his  opinions  in  general.  But  I  think  I  can, 
without  bias,  examine  some  of  his  theories  which  do  not 
strictly  belong  either  to  science  or  religion ;  and,  of 
course,  for  that  particular  purpose  it  is  not  in  the  least 
necessary  that  I  should  be  myself  a  scientist— which  I 
am  not.  If  a  man  says  "  Yes  is  no,"  I  need  not  ask  what 
the  "  yes  "  is,  or  what  the  "  no  " ;  I  know  that  the  propo- 
sition is  self-contradictory,  whatever  its  terms  may  be. 
When  Dr.  Maudsley  now  and  then  condescends  to  come 
down  from  his  high  throne  of  scientific  infallibility  and 
discuss,  for  instance,  such  questions  as  belief— e^^w 
with  ignorant  people  who  never  knew  that  belief  was 
a  molecular  movement  in  the  substance  of  the  brain — 
I  think  anybody  who  is  in  the  habit  of  carefully  in- 
specting the  operations  of  his  own  mind  is  competent 
to  criticise  him.  Here,  then,  is  his  account  of  the 
purely  intellectual  act  or  process  which  we  call  belief 
(p.  17): 

It  is  with  beliefs  as  it  is  with  movements,  the  right  belief, 
like  the  right  movement,  being  that  which  has  been  acquired 


342     DK.  maudsley's  "natural  causes,"  etc. 

by  the  suitable  adaptation  to  former  like  circumstances,  and  now 
fits  with  most  exactness  present  circumstances  ;  true,  therefore, 
if  they  are  essentially  like,  untrue  if  they  are  unlike.  To  ask  a 
person  to  believe  otherwise  than  according  to  his  uniform  experi- 
ence, is  like  asking  a  skilful  purposive  movement  which  has 
been  acquired  with  great  pains,  by  special  training,  to  adapt 
itself  suddenly  to  the  accomplishment  of  something  quite  differ- 
ent ;  and  to  ask  him  not  to  apply  old  beliefs  to  the  apprehension 
of  new  facts,  is  like  asking  a  man  not  to  use  for  the  grasping  of  a 
new  object  the  most  fit  movements  which  he  is  capable  of, 
because  they  are  not  entirely  fit.  He  must  use  the  old  motor 
apprehension  or  grasp  until  he  has  fitted  himself  with  a  new 
one,  which  he  gains  by  gradual  adaptation.  So  it  is  with 
beliefs:  he  cannot  choose  but  make  use  of  the  old  belief,  though 
it  does  not  fit  exactly  ;  but  in  doing  so  he  ought  to  take  great 
care  to  see  exactly  wherein  it  does  not  fit,  and  proceed  to  modify 
it  accordingly.  Does  it  err  by  falling  short  of,  or  by  being  in 
excess  of,  the  facts  V  And  is  it  necessary  to  add  to  it  or  to  take 
from  it,  or  otherwise  to  modify  it  ? 

Here  Dr.  Maudsley  asserts  that  belief  is  acquired  like 
dexterous  muscular  movements.  For  instance,  some- 
body tells  me  that  John  Smith  has  shot  himself,  and  is 
dead.  I  go  to  his  house,  see  his  dead  body,  and  hear 
tlie  story  of  the  circumstances  of  his  death.  Dr. 
Maudsley  seems  to  affirm  that,  in  such  a  case,  I  have 
to  practise  Mieving,  like  learning  to  play  on  the  piano. 
John  Smith's  suicide  is  a  new  experience.  I  can  only 
get  hold  of  that  experience  by  "making  use  of  the  old 
belief"  that  John  Smith  is  still  alive;  and  by  pounding 
away  at  that  belief,  and  by  "fitting  to  it  "the  new 
experience,  I  shall  gradually  come  to  be  sure  that  John 
Smith  is  not  alive  at  all,  but  shot  himself  through  the 
heart. 

But  nothing  can  be  more  remote  from  personal 
experience— that  is  to  say,  what  we  are  conscious  of  in 


DR.  maudsley's  "natural  causes,"  etc.     343 

the  act  of  believing — than  this  theory  of  belief,  and  in 
such  a  matter  personal  experience  is  the  ultimate  and 
only  test  of  the  truth  of  the  theory.  Whately  says, 
giving  an  example  of  a  proposition,  that  "  naturalists 
have  observed  that  *  animals  having  horns  on  the  head 
are  universally  ruminant.'"  Otherwise — "All  horned 
animals  are  ruminant."  I  do  not  know  whether  this 
proposition  is  true  or  not;  but,  in  either  case,  it  will 
serve  equally  well  as  a  proposition  by  which  to  test  Dr. 
Maudsley's  theory  of  belief — which  is,  that  belief  is 
acquired,  like  muscular  dexterity,  by  repeated  efforts. 
Before  belief  of  Whately's  proposition  is  so  much  as 
possible,  the  person  who  considers  it  must  know  the 
meaning  of  its  terms,  "  horned"  and  "  ruminant."  He 
must  know  the  effect  of  the  predication — viz. :  that 
every  horned  animal  is  to  be  found  among  the  class  of 
animals  that  ruminate.  Whether  this  be  true  or  not, 
he  must  decide  either  by  personal  observation,  or  by 
testimony,  or  by  both.  When  he  has  ascertained  its 
truth,  he  immediately  and  j9er/ec^Zy  believes  it.  He 
does  not  acquire  his  belief  by  helieving  over  and  over 
again,  as  a  man  acquires  the  muscular  dexterity  of 
playing  on  the  piano  by  continual  practice. 
Take  another  example  (p.  33) : 

To  every  one  a  thing  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  what  he 
thinks  it — in  effect,  a  think  ;  and  to  think  a  new  thing  he  must 
first  use  the  old  thought.  How  cau  he  do  otherwise  before  new 
experience  has  enabled  hira  to  organize  a  new  think  ?  The  old 
thing  or  think  represents  object  ^j?«s  subject.  The  thing, 
therefore,  is  no  thing  to  hira  until  it  is  asselfed  in  a  think,  for 
until  then  it  is  object  minus  subject.  And  this  is  true  also  of 
all  the  properties  and  relations  of  the  object.  If  he  tells  or 
foretells  anything  of  it  or  of  them,  he  must  do  it  in  terras  of 
the  language  which  he  knows,  obviously  cannot  do  it  in  terms 


344       DR.  MAUDBLEy's  "  NATURAL   CAUSES,"  ETC. 

of  a  language  which  he  has  yet  to  learn.  In  applying,  then, 
the  old  notion  to  a  new  fact,  as  he  must  necessarily  apply 
some  notion  to  it  in  order  to  observe  it  intelligently  at  all,  he 
uses  a  notion  which,  not  fitting  the  fact  exactly,  comes  between 
him  and  it,  in  so  far  as  it  is  unfit,  and  so  hinders  him  from  getting 
into  exact  and  faithlul  converse  with  it ;  instead  of  being  a 
completely  fitting  instrument  to  accomplish  the  adaptation,  it  is 
an  interposing  obstacle,  to  the  extent  of  its  uiisuitableness, 
which  hinders  his  mind  from  moulding  itself  plastically  to  the 
fact. 

Now,  after  carefully  pondering  this  remarkable 
passage,  let  ns  call  to  mind  that  Dr.  Maudsley  is  a 
scientist — i.  e.,  he  is  a  man  whose  professional  business 
it  is  to  investigate  phenomena  cognizable  by  the  senses. 
If,  therefore,  he  ever  arrives  at  the  knowledge  of  thought 
at  all — which  is  not  cognizable  by  the  senses — it  must 
be  either  by  a  primary,  extra-scientific  assumption,  or 
by  an  irresistible  inference  from  what  he  has  observed 
of  "  things."  Now,  in  the  passage  I  have  quoted 
above.  Dr.  Maudsley  seems  exactly  to  reverse  this 
process.  Instead  of  beginning  with  a  thing — a  really 
existing  object — and  getting  an  accurate  knowledge 
of  it  through  the  senses,  and  so  arriving  at  a  clear 
thought  about  it,  he  begins  with  a  thought.  Nay 
more,  he  identifies  the  thought  and  the  thing;  so 
that,  in  fact,  there  is  either  no  thing  to  investigate 
or  no  think  to  investigate  it  with,  and  knowledge 
is  impossible.  Again,  on  Dr.  Maudsley's  theory, 
knowledge  is  impossible  for  another  reason.  To  think 
a  new  thing,  he  says,  we  must  use  an  old  thought. 
But  there  must  have  been  a  time  when  we — or  if  we 
inherit  "thought"  as  a  part  of  our  "mental  struc- 
ture," when  our  remotest  ancestor — had  no  thought 
at  all,  and  came  unequipped  by  previous  knowledge, 


DR.  MAUDSI-Ey's  "natural    CAUSES,''  ETC.        345 

with  nothing  but  our  senses  and  intellect,  to  the  exami- 
nation of  the  first  fact  that  presented  itself  for  our 
inspection.  Having  no  old  thought,  Dr.  Maudsley 
assures  us  that  it  was  impossible  to  think  the  new 
thing.  Knowledge,  therefore,  was  barred  out  at  the 
very  first  stage,  and,  for  the  very  same  reason,  at  every 
subsequent  stage.  I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  I  perceive 
Dr.  Maudsley's  real  meaning,  and  I  doubt  whether  he 
perceived  it  himself.  I  have  never  met  with  the  word 
asselfcd  (so  far  as  I  can  remember)  in  any  English  book, 
or  heard  it  from  any  human  lips,  and  have  no  notion 
what  it  is  meant  to  stand  for.  But  I  will  suppose 
myself  "  put  in  face  of  a  new  fact "  which  I  desire  to 
investigate,  so  as  to  get  an  accurate  knowledge  of  what 
it  really  is ;  which  knowledge,  when  I  have  acquired 
it,  may  be  regarded  as  a  thought  or  a  connected  series 
of  thoughts.  There  are  already  in  my  mind  a  great 
multitude  of  thoughts  or  series  of  thoughts  similarly 
obtained;  say,  for  example,  the  thought,  notion,  mental 
representation  of  a  camel.  And  let  me  suppose  that 
the  new  fact  I  am  "  put  in  face  of"  is  a  frog.  Now,  in 
order  to  ascertain  how  I  am  to  obtain  a  clear  knowledge 
of  the  frog,  so  as  to  be  able  to  carry  about  with  me  in 
my  mind  a  true  conception  or  representation  of  it,  I 
will  paraphrase  Dr.  Maudsley's  paragraph;  using 
"  frog "  for  the  new  fact,  and  "  camel "  (any  other 
would  do  as  well:  snail,  for  instance,  or  toad)  for  "the 
old  thought."  "To  every  one  a  [frog]  is  neither  more 
nor  less  than  what  he  thinks  it — in  effect,  a  tJiinJc"; 
that  is  to  say,  a  living  animal  is  a  mental  process, 
"neither  more  nor  less";  "and  to  think  a  [frog]  he 
must  first  use  [the  camel].  How  can  he  do  otherwise 
before  new  experience  has  enabled  him  to  organize  a 


346   DR.  MAUDSLEY  S  "  NATURAL  CAUSES,   ETC. 

new  thmkf  I  have  not  the  faintest  notion  of  what 
is  meant  by  "  organizing  a  thinJc  "  ;  but  Dr.  Maudsley 
fieenis  to  me  to  mean  that  you  cannot  get  the  accurate 
mental  representation  of  anything  until  you  have  gone 
over  it  in  your  mind  a  great  many  times.  But  whai  do 
you  go  over  in  your  mind  so  often?  Why,  the  very 
^' think"  that  you  cannot  get  at  all  until  you  have 
"  organized  "  it.  In  other  words,  Dr.  Maudsley  seems 
to  mean  that  you  must  create  the  "  think  "  by  not  only 
having  it,  but  frequently  using  it.  This  reminds  me, 
as  many  other  passages  in  this  book  do,  of  the  stage- 
direction  in  the  old  German  Miracle- Play :  "Enter 
Adam  and  Eve,  who  cross  the  stage  goi7ig  to  be  created." 
But  to  proceed:  "  The  old  thing  or  think  [the  camel] 
represents  object  plus  subject;  the  new  thing  [frog], 
therefore,  is  no  thing  to  him  until  it  is  asselfed  in  a 
think,  for  until  then  it  is  object  minus  subject."  Per- 
haps, after  all,  these  wonderful  words  only  mean  that 
you  cannot  know  a  thing  until  you  do  know  it,  or  see 
it  until  it  comes  within  the  range  of  vision.  "  In  apply- 
ing, then,  the  old  notion  [camel]  to  a  new  fact  [frog], 
as  he  must  necessarily  apply  some  notion  [and  camel  is 
just  as  good  as  any  other,  such  as  hippopotamus  or  flea] 
to  it  in  order  to  observe  it  intelligently  at  all,  he  uses 
a  notion  which,  not  fitting  the  fact  exactly,  .... 
hinders  his  mind  from  moulding  itself  plastically  to 
the  fact."  Then  why,  in  the  name  of  science,  does  he 
apply  "  the  old  notion  "  at  all  ?  Why  can  he  not  devote 
his  attention  to  tJie  frog  and  leave  the  camel  in  its 
native  desert?  But  of  this  anon.  Meanwhile,  having 
insisted  upon  bringing  his  camel  with  him,  "what,  then, 
must  he  do  ?"  I  am  now  quoting  from  the  paragraph 
immediately  following  the  one  quoted  above  :  "  Putting 


DK.  MADDSLEy's  "natural    CAUSES,"  ETC.       M7 

himself  resolutely  into  close  converse  with  the  new 
experience  [the  frog],  he  must  hold  his  notion  [the 
camel]  loosely,  as  of  provisional  use  and  susceptible  of 
modification,  or  lay  it  clean  aside,  bringing  other  more 
serviceable  notions  to  his  assistance  [such,  perhaps,  as 
snake,  lizard,  fish],  in  order  to  get  a  full  and  faithful 
impression  of  the  facts  [what  facts  ?]  in  that  wherein 
they  disagree  from  or  contradict  his  prepossessions."  . . . 
Now,  I  had  always  thought  that  this  way  of  acquir- 
ing the  knowledge  of  a  fact  or  phenomenon — viz. :  by 
interposing  between  the  fact  and  our  own  minds  a 
multitude  of  "  notions" — was  the  very  road  at  the  head 
of  which  science  had  long  ago  put  up  a  large  sign- 
board with,  in  very  big  letters,  the  words  "  Dangerous: 
this  road  leads  directly  to  a  deep  quagmire  which  it  is 
almost  impossible  for  anybody  to  cross."  But,  as  Dr. 
Maudsley  has  taken  the  sign-board  down,  let  us  venture 
forward,  camel  and  all — all  the  other  possibly  "  service- 
able notions  " — hoping  to  get  safe  over.  Our  little  frog 
hops  into  sight,  and  we  say,  "Aha!  that  is  a  camel!" 
We  take  the  little  creature  into  our  hands  :  it  feels 
coldish,  it  has  no  hair,  no  hump,  no  long  ears,  no  tail 
or  hoofs.  Our  "old  notion"  does  not  "fit  exactly." 
So  we  remember  that  it  is  "susceptible  of  modifica- 
tion ";  and  we  find  so  much  to  modify  that  at  last  we 
have  nothing  more  of  the  camel  left  than  a  tuft  of  hair 
enough  to  hang  on  by.  But  that,  of  course,  is  not  the 
frog;  so  we  reverse  the  process  of  subtraction  and 
begin  to  add,  one  after  another,  the  various  parts  and 
organs  of  the  frog,  our  "  new  experience."  We  con- 
tinue this  process  until  we  have  obtained  the  entire 
frog  plus  the  tuft  of  hair.  This  still  does  not  "  fit 
exactly,"  so  we  throw  the  tuft  of  hair  away,  and  we 
have  all  the  frog  with  none  of  the  camel. 


348       DR.  MAUDSLEy's  "  NATURAL    CAUSES,"  ETC. 

Now,  the  question  is — and  it  is  not  a  question  lying 
within  the  special  domain  of  the  scientists,  but  one 
which  anybody  who  has  ever  acquired  knowledge  is, 
by  simple  and  careful  introspection,  as  capable  of 
answering  as  Dr.  Maudsley — "Is  this,  or  is  it  not,  the 
process  by  which  we  do  acquire  the  knowledge  of  a 
hitherto  unknown  fact  or  phenomenon  ?"  Most  unde- 
niably it  is  not.  When  we  see  a  frog  for  the  first  time, 
we  do  not  warily  catch  him,  put  him  in  a  jar,  and  then 
go  to  the  nearest  zoological  gardens  for  a  dozen  or  two 
of  old  "thinks"  which  may  be  "serviceable"  to  us  in 
our  investigation  of  the  frog.  We  just  watch  the  frog, 
see  him  hop  about,  notice  what  he  eats,  watch  him 
swim  across  a  pond.  We  catch  him,  examine  him 
carefully.  Perhaps,  next,  we  cut  him  open  and  examine 
also  his  interior  organs;  we  may  use  for  this  purpose 
a  microscope,  and  so  on.  We  never  once  thmk  of  a 
camel ;  we  get  as  close  as  we  possibly  can  to  the  frog 
itself;  and  when  we  have  got  through  our  investiga- 
tion we  have  a  notion,  conception,  mental  representa- 
tion of  the  frog  available  for  all  future  purposes.  The 
frog  has  not  ceased  to  be  a  thwg,  but  it  has  become 
also,  for  us,  to  use  the  grotesque  language  of  Dr. 
Maudsley,  "  a  think." 

Of  course  it  is  only  too  probable  that  I  have  mis- 
taken the  meaning  of  the  passage  on  wliich  I  have 
been  commenting.  If  I  have,  it  is  not  because  I  am 
not  a  scientist,  for  there  is  nothing  in  the  passage 
which  has  anything  to  do  with  physical  science; 
except,  perhaps,  the  possibly  implied  assertion  that 
Dr.  Maudsley,  as  an  anatomist,  has  discovered  in  the 
human  brain,  or  elsewhere,  a  number  of  "organized 
thinks";  which  perhaps  he  may  have  described,  with 


DR.  MAUDSLEy's  "  NATURAL    CAUSES,"  ETC.        349 

the  aid  of  diagrams,  and  with  a  minute  account  of  their 
specific  gravity,  chemical  composition,  colour,  and  the 
like,  in  some  scientific  treatise  of  which  I  have  never 
heard.  But  could  anybody  discover  in  the  writings  of 
Darwin,  or  Huxley,  or  Tyndall,  a  piece  of  English 
(excluding  the  word  asself,  which  is  not  English)  to 
match  the  obscurity  of  this  extract? 

I  will  take  one  other  example  of  Dr.  Maudsley's 
obscurity  combined  with  wholly  unverified,  and  con- 
fidently affirmed,  "  scientific  "  hypotheses.  I  scarcely 
know  which  to  select.  I  might  take  his  account  of 
Attention  (pp.  61-67),  or  of  Imagmation;  the  latter  is 
peculiarly  rich  in  suggestions.  Consider  the  following 
passage  (pp.  135-136) : 

At  the  risk  of  being  thought  fanciful,  I  may  ventui*e  to  carry 
the  physical  comparison  a  step  further.  What  is  the  equivalent 
on  the  physical  side — for  such  equivalent  there  must  be — what 
the  nervous  substratum  of  an  act  of  imagination  ?  We  learn 
from  the  physiologists  that  the  nervous  substratum  of  thought 
is,  directly  or  indirectly,  a  nervous  tract  in  connection  with  an 
ingoing  sensory  and  an  outgoing  motor  channel — what  they  call 
a  reflex  arc — in  the  cerebral  plane.  How  can  imagination  have 
any  place  in  such  a  process,  which,  though  it  may  increase  in 
strength,  can  never  go  outside  its  own  track,  never  transcend 
experience?  Perhaps  it  is,  when  imagination  works,  that  there 
is  a  production  of  new  nerve-junctions  or  nerve-tracks  from  the 
old  stocks  or  tracks  of  thought,  or,  if  not  an  actual  production, 
the  bringing  into  use,  for  the  formation  of  junctions,  of  nerve- 
cells  lying  around  in  all  states  of  incomplete  development. 
These  new  elements  will  testify  necessarily  of  the  special  quali- 
ties of  their  immediate  parents,  being  rich  in  rare  qualities  and 
full  of  vigour  and  promise  when  these  are  well  informed  by  good 
experience  and  sound  training,  but  feeble  and  poor  and  futile 
when  the  basis  of  sound  experience  and  thought  is  wantiiig ; 
and  when  they  form  apt  organic  unions  or  junctions  between 
proper  nerve-tracks,  they  lay  the  physical  basis  of  fresh  com- 


350      DR.  maudslet's  "natural  causes,"  etc. 

binations  of  ideas,  bright  flashes  of  new  conceptions,  prophetic 
anticipations  of  subsequent  experience.  It  is  not,  anyhow,  as 
some  thoughtlessly  conclude,  imagination  which  starts  the 
organic  process :  it  is  the  organic  process  which  is  the  condition 
of  imagination.  That  currents  pass  along  neighbouring  tracks 
and  run  into  adjacent  nerve-terminals  (where  the  nerve  loses 
its  isolating  sheath  and  ends  indistinguishably  in  the  tissue)  is 
certain ;  it  is  not  improbable,  therefore,  that  when,  accumu- 
lating there,  they  attain  by  intensification  of  qualities  or  near- 
ness of  approach  a  certain  attraction,  they  break  through  the 
impeding  matter  and  rush  together,  making  an  organized  path 
by  coercing  the  elemental  units  into  definite  positions,  temporary 
or  permanent. 

Is  it  possible  that  this  rhapsody  can  be  seriously 
intended  for  a  contribution  to  physical  science  f  "  Per- 
haps .  .  .  when  imagination  works"!  But  we  need  no 
anatomist  to  tell  us  what  imagination  does  when  "  it 
works."  It  produces  Homeric  Poems,  Hamlet,  and 
such  like.  Dr.  Maudsley,  however,  professes  to  be 
investigating,  not  imagination,  tut  "the  nervous  sub- 
stratum of  an  act  of  imagination."  Has  he  ever,  as 
anatomist  or  physiologist,  discovered  that  "nervous 
substratum"?  can  he  distinguish  it  from  other  "nerv- 
ous tracts,"  or  cells,  or  fibres  ?  But,  be  this  as  it  may, 
how  can  a  "  nervous  substratum  of  an  act  of  imagina- 
tion" ^'produce"  or  "brifig  into  use"  anything  what- 
ever ?  One  might  as  well  say  that  "  a  calcareous  or 
ligneous  substratum"  produces  a  house;  or  "brings 
into  u^e"  masons  and  carpenters  and  mortar  and  nails. 
It  seems  there  are  lying  about  in  the  brain,  "  in  all 
states  of  incomplete  development,"  nerve-cells — like 
big  stones  in  the  bed  of  a  shallow  river — and  imagina- 
tion (here  adroitly  substituted  for  its  "nervous  sub- 
stratum ")  skips  over  the  river  by  the  help  of  these 
convenient  stepping-stones,  carrying  with  it  ropes  or 


DR.  MAUDSLEy's  "natural    CAUSES,"  ETC.       351 

building  materials,  and  "  makes  an  organized  path  by 
coercing  the  elemental  units" — Avhat  are  "the  ele- 
mental units"? — "into  definite  positions,  temporary 
or  permanent."  And  this  is  supposed  to  be  more 
reasonable,  and  more  capable  of  scientific  verification, 
than  the  Christian  religion !  It  is,  at  any  rate,  a  most 
conspicuous  example  of  science  in  the  anthropomor- 
phic, and  purely  hypothetical,  stage. 

But  the  passage  I  had  in  my  mind — these  others, 
among  many  which  I  had  marked,  arrested  my  attention 
in  looking  for  it — is  the  following  (p.  37) : 

The  perception  of  analogies  and  resemblances  in  Nature  leads 
easily  to  generalizations,  which  are  afterwards  verified  or  not. 
If  the  generalization  be  not  verified  because  of  the  contradic- 
tory or  irreconcilable  instance  presenting  itself,  then  this  dis- 
sentient experience,  if  taken  sincerely  home  and  registered  faith- 
fully in  the  mind,  is  organized  there  into  a  new  organ  or  faculty, 
so  to  speak,  and  thereafter  assimilates  its  likes.  A  new  track 
of  function  is  opened,  to  which  associations  or,  as  it  were, 
junctions  are  formed  in  due  course  ;  a  rich  addition  being  thus 
made  to  the  cerebral  plexus  of  the  mental  organization. 

I  am  again  baffled,  in  my  attempt  to  get  at  the  real 
meaning  of  this  passage,  not  only  by  its  vagueness,  but 
by  a  kind  of  poetic  anthropomorphism  which,  however 
beautiful,  does  not  easily  submit  itself  either  to  scien- 
tific or  logical  restraints.  It  is  perfectly  obvious  that 
if  we  could  deal  with  or  suflBciently  describe  everything 
in  rerum  natura  only  when  taken  separately,  the  words 
of  a  language  would  be  very  far  more  numerous  than 
the  sum  of  all  existing  things.  We  observe,  however,  that 
the  things  around  us,  though  no  two  of  them  are  exactly 
alike,  may  yet  be  divided  into  groups,  on  the  ground 
of  a  general  resemblance.  We,  therefore,  by  a  process 
called   ahstradion.  withdraw  or   divert  our   attention 


352       DR.  MAUDSLEy's  "  NATURAL   CAUSES,"  ETC. 

from  the  minor  differences  which,  for  any  given  pur- 
pose— though,  for  other  purposes,  they  may  be  essen- 
tial— we  do  not  think  it  worth  while  to  notice ; 
arranging  in  separate  classes  those  things  all  of  which 
possess  certain  properties  or  qualities.  We  invent  a 
name  which  shall  connote  exactly  those  properties  or 
qualities,  and  no  others,  and  we  give  that  name  to 
each  member  of  the  class  so  characterized.  This  is,  I 
believe,  tlie  process  of  generalization  ;  and  the  name 
arising  out  of  this  process  is  a  general  or  commo?i  name. 
Thus,  for  instance,  we  find  an  immense  number  of 
animals  possessing  the  following  characteristics:  "An 
undivided  hoof  formed  of  the  third  toe  and  its  enlarged 
horny  nail,  a  single  stomach,  a  mane  on  the  neck,  six 
incisor  teeth  in  each  jaw,  seven  molars  on  either  side 
of  both  jaws,  two  small  canine  teeth  in  the  upper  jaw 
of  the  males  (and  sometimes  in  both  jaws),  no  bands  of 
blackish-brown,  no  black  dorsal  line,  long  hair  on  the 
tail,  and  warts  on  both  pairs  of  limbs."  We  invent  the 
name  horse  to  connote  these  properties  or  character- 
istics, and  to  every  animal  possessing  them  we  give 
that  name.  Now,  what  could  be  meant  by  "  verifying  " 
this  generalization  ?  Clearly  making  such  careful 
observations  as  should  satisfy  us  that  there  does,  or 
does  not,  really  exist  a  number  of  animals  with  these 
characteristics.  But  this  is  not  what  I  think  Dr. 
Maudsley  means  by  "  verifying  "  ageneralization.  What 
I  think  he  does  mean  I  will  try  to  make  plain  by  a 
concrete  illustration.  A  very  raw  farm-hand  comes 
and  tells  me  that  he  has  driven  all  the  horses  into  a 
yard  and  shut  them  up.  "  Very  well,"  I  say ;  "  bring 
two  of  them  out  and  have  the  carriage  ready,  and  I 
will  see  what  they  are  good  for."     He  brings  two  out, 


DR.  MAUDSLEY's  "natural    CAUSES,"  ETC.       353 

and  while  he  is  trying  to  harness  them  I  find  that  one 
of  thein  is  a  cow.  This  cow,  then,  woiikl  correspond,  I 
think,  to  Dr.  Maudsley's  "  contradictory  or  irrecon- 
cilable instance,"  or  "  dissentient  experience  " ;  and 
clearly  it  is  of  great  importance  that  I  should  be  so 
familiar  with  the  difference  between  them  as  not  to 
harness  a  cow  to  my  carriage  or  send  a  horse  to  the 
datry-farm. 

But  now  we  come  to  the  anthropomorphic  poetry — 
the  Nemesis  of  Science.  The  "  dissentient  experience  " 
— in  the  illustration  given  above,  the  mental  represen- 
tation of  a  cow — is  to  be  "taken  sincerely  home  and 
registered  faithfully  in  the  mind."  It  is  then  "  organ- 
ized into  a  new  organ  or  faculty."  But  what  is  the 
use  of  the  new  organ  or  faculty,  even  if  it  should  be 
produced,  of  which  there  is  not  the  smallest  atom  of 
evidence  ?  Is  it  an  organ  or  faculty  by  means  of  which 
I  distinguish  a  cow  from  a  horse  ?  But  I  possess  that 
faculty  already.  It  was  by  the  very  use  of  that  faculty 
that  I  really  did  distinguish  the  particular  cow  that  I 
"took  sincerely  home";  it  was  that  very  faculty  which 
enabled  me  to  "  take  it "  there,  "  and  register  it 
faithfully  in  my  mind."  Nevertheless,  it  may  be  Avell 
to  have  two  strings  to  my  bow,  though  one  might 
serve.  Next,  however,  the  new  (duplicate)  "  organ," 
which  apparently  has  organized  itself,  produces  this 
effect:  "A  new  track  of  function  [v^^hat,  precisely, 
is  a  "track  of  function"?]  is  opened,  to  which 
associations  or,  as  it  were,  junctions  are  formed  in 
due  course ;  a  rich  addition  being  thus  made  to  the 
cerebral  plexus  of  the  mental  organization."  Does  Dr. 
Maudsley  really  mean  to  be  taken  seriously,  or  is  he 
trying  to  "  fool "  theologians  "  to  the  top  of  their  bent"? 


354      DK.  MAUDSLEy's  "  NATURAL    CAUSES,"  ETC. 

He  surely  does  not  mean  that  the  "mental  organization" 
is  different  from  and  independent  of  the  bodily  organ- 
ization ;  having  a  cerebrum  and  spinal  cord,  and  perhaps 
kidneys  and  liver,  of  its  own.  He  probably  means 
"the  cerebral  plexus  (plexuses?)"  which  are  the 
"  nervous  substratum  "  of  mental  operations.  So  we 
may  omit  the  "  mental  organization,"  and  inquire  into 
the  evidence  for  the  assertion  that  a  particular  kind  of 
mental  operation  produces  "a  rich  addition  to  the 
cerebral  plexus."  Now,  both  these  terms,  cerebral  and 
plexus,  have  a  perfectly  definite  meaning. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  anything  about  the 
meaning  of  the  word  cerebral ;  but  what  is  a  2^^^^usf 
I  will  give  a  definition  and  an  example  from  a  very 
well-known  text-book.  The  Anatomist's  Vade  Mecnm, 
by  Erasmus  Wilson  (Ninth  Edition,  1873).  Here  is 
the  definition :  "  A  plexus  is  an  intricate  intercommu- 
nication between  the  funiculi  of  adjacent  nerves  "  (p. 
435).  Here  is  an  example,  of  which  I  quote  enough 
to  answer  my  very  simple  purpose : 

The  brachial  or  axillary  plexus  of  nerves  is  formed  by  com- 
munications between  the  anterior  cords  of  the  four  lower  cervical 
nerves  and  first  dorsal.  These  nerves  are  alike  in  size,  and 
their  mode  of  disposition  in  the  formation  of  the  plexus  as  fol- 
lows :  The  fifth  and  sixth  unite  to  form  a  common  trunk ;  the 
last  cervical  and  first  dorsal  also  unite  to  form  a  single  trunk  ; 
the  seventh  cervical  nerve  lies  for  some  distance  apart  from  the 
rest,  and  then  divides  into  two  branches,  which  join  the  other 
cords.  At  the  point  of  junction  the  plexus  consists  of  two  cords, 
from  which  a  third  is  given  ofl;,  and  the  three  become  placed, 
one  to  the  inner  side  of  the  axillary  artery,  one  behind,  and  one 
to  its  outer  side.  Lower  down,  each  of  the  lateral  cords  gives 
off  a  branch  which  unites  with  its  fellow  in  front  of  the  artery, 
and  surrounds  the  vessel,  the  trunk  formed  by  the  union  of  the 
two  branches  being  the  median  nerve.     The  plexus  is  broad  in 


DR.  MAUDSLEy's  "  NATURAL   CAUSES,"  ETC.       355 

the  neck,  narrows  as  it  descends  into  the  axilla,  and  again 
enlarges  at  its  lower  part,  where  it  divides  into  its  terminal 
branches. 

Whether  or  not  there  is  in  the  cerebrum  itself  "  an 
intricate  intercommunication  between  the  funiculi  of 
adjacent  nerves,"  I  do  not  pretend  to  know.  As  Dr. 
Maudsley  speaks  of  a  "cerebral  plexus,"  of  course 
there  is.  But  the  point  to  which  I  wish  to  direct 
attention  is  this:  that  a  plexus,  whether  cerebral, 
aortic,  cervical,  diaphragmatic,  or  any  other,  is  visible, 
tangible,  measurable,  and  can  be  dissected  out.  Any 
"rich  addition"  to  it,  to  say  nothing  of  new  "tracts" 
and  "connections,"  will  be  a  "rich  addition"  to  its 
size.  If  it  were  increased  several  million-fold  it  might 
be  as  big  as  a  coil  of  rope.  If  any  "  rich  addition,"  or 
even  moderately  poor  "  addition,"  were  made  to  it,  the 
anatomist  would  infallibly  discover  it;  he  would  write 
about  it  to  the  Lancet  or  in  the  Transactions  of  some 
scientific  Association ;  he  would  dissect  it  out,  and  have 
it  preserved  in  the  Museum  of  the  Eoyal  College  of 
Surgeons.  Now,  the  mental  operation  which  Dr. 
Maudsley  says  makes  a  "  rich  addition  to  the  cerebral 
plexus" — viz.:  carefully  noting  the  slight  differences 
which  should  prevent  our  including  some  object  in  a 
particular  class — is  an  operation  performed  thousands 
of  times  over  by  every  human  being.  In  the  compo- 
sition of  a  single  Budget  for  the  British  Empire  Mr. 
Gladstone  performs  this  operation  often  enough,  one 
might  think,  to  absolutely  fill  his  skull  with  "  cerebral 
plexus,"  and  kill  himself,  so  to  speak,  by  cerebral 
suffocation.  And  this  amazing  theory  is  only  a  par- 
ticular case  of  Dr.  Maudsley's  general  theory  of  the 
relation  of  mind  to  its  "  nervous  substratum."     That 


356       DR.  MAUDSLEy's  "  KATURAL    CAUSES,"  ETC. 

general  theory,  so  far  as  I  understand  it,  is  this :  that 
Ave  begin  life  with  a  sufficient  nervous  substratum  for 
our  first  mental  operations ;  that  these  mental  opera- 
tions enlarge  their  old,  or  produce  new,  physical  organs 
— with  tracts,  connections,  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  Now, 
&,  2Jliysicfil  organ  must  have  some  size  ;  if  it  be  increased, 
its  size,  is  increased ;  if  new  organs  be  produced,  they  also 
must  occupy  some  definite  space.  At  the  end  of  a  long 
life,  therefore,  the  *'  nervous  substratum  "  of  mind  must 
be  many  millions  of  times  larger  than  it  was  to  begin 
with ;  Mr.  Gladstone's  must  be  to-day  many  millions 
of  times  greater  than  it  was  when  first  the  bones  of  his 
skull  had  become  consolidated.  Now,  what  particle  of 
evidence  is  there  for  this  theory  ?  So  far  as  my  reading 
has  extended,  I  have  discovered  not  an  atom.  The  fact 
that  Mr.  Gladstone's  skull  was  not  long  ago  burst 
open  is  a  positive  disproof  And  when,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  holding  up  the  Christian  religion  to  contempt, 
Dr.  Maudsley  oflers  us  these  unverifiable  hypotheses 
as  "  science,"  he  sinks  below  the  level  of  an  old  Eoman 
who  affirmed  that  his  good  luck  was  caused  by  his 
happening  to  see  a  flight  of  birds  in  a  particular  region 
of  the  heavens. 

Absurd  and  demonstrably  false  as  these  theories 
seem  to  me  to  be,  they  are  to  be  found  in  the  works  of 
nearly  all  the  physiological-psychologists  Avith  which 
I  am  acquainted.  The  object  of  these  writers  is  not  to 
furnish  an  exact  account  of  the  anatomy  and  physi- 
ology of  the  brain  and  nervous  system ;  which  they  are 
abundantly  qualified  to  do,  which  is  obviously  within 
the  true  limits  of  science,  and  in  which  they  are  far 
beyond  any  criticism  of  mine.  But  their  object  is  to 
determine  the  physical  conditions,  or  invariable  physi- 


DR.  maudsley's  "natural  causp:s,"  etc.      35T 

cal  antecedents,  accompaniments  or  consequents  of 
mental  operations.  They  so  often  speak  of  matter  in 
terms  of  mind,  and  of  mind  in  terms  of  matter,  that  it 
might  be  supposed  they  regard  mind  and  matter  as 
substantially  identical.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
very  attempt  to  ascertain  the  relation  between  the  two 
implies  that  they  are  substantially  different.  This  is 
clearly  admitted  by  Dr.  Bain,  who  is  indeed  more  a 
psychologist  than  a  physiologist;  and  the  distinction 
he  draws  between  the  two  is  precisely  that  with  which 
we  are  all  familiar.  Mind  we  know — or  at  least  the 
operations  of  mind — by  direct  consciousness,  from  which 
there  is  no  appeal.  Matter  we  know  by  observation, 
and  especially  by  observing  that  its  properties  are 
wholly  incommensurable  with  the  properties  or  opera- 
tions of  mind.  He  says  {Mind  and  Body,  in  the  Inter- 
national Scientific  Series,  pp.  124-125) : 

I  repeat,  what  a  piece  of  matter  is,  what  an  operation  of  mind 
is,  we  know  equally  well ;  we  see  that  they  both  agree  and 
differ  from  other  kinds  of  matter,  and  from  other  operations  of 
mind.  There  is  a  much  closer  kindred  between  material  facts 
among  themselves,  and  between  mental  facts  among  themselves, 
than  between  material  facts  generally  and  mental  facts  gen- 
erally. Hence,  we  resolve  all  the  facts  of  Nature  ultimately 
into  two  kinds— matter  and  mind  ;  and  we  do  not  resolve  these 
into  anything  higher.  We  come  upon  a  wider  contrast  at  this 
point  than  we  had  in  any  prior  stage  of  our  generalizing 
movement.  The  plants  and  the  animals  differ  widely  in  their 
details ;  both  differ  still  more  widely  from  inanimate  matter. 
Yet  they  agree  in  all  the  principal  features  of  material  bodies, 
and  are  in  total  opposition  to  mind,  which  has  neither  the  dis- 
tinctive features  of  either  nor  the  common  attributes  of  both. 
The  inanimate  and  the  animate  are  not  so  different  as  body  and 
mind.  Extension  is  but  the  first  of  a  long  series  of  properties 
all   present  in  matter,  all  absent  in   mind.     Inertia   cannot 


358       DR.  MAUDSLEY's  "  NATURAL    CAUSES,"  ETC. 

belong  to  a  pleasure,  a  pain,  an  idea,  as  experienced  in  the 
consciousness ;  it  can  belong  only  to  the  physical  accompani- 
ments of  mind — theovert  actsoE  volition,  and  the  manifestations 
of  feeling.  Inertia  is  accompanied  with  gravity,  a  peculiarly 
material  property.  So  colouk  is  a  truly  material  property  :  it 
cannot  attach  to  a  feeling,  properly  so  called,  a  pleasure  or  a 
pain.  These  three  properties  are  the  basis  of  matter  ;  to  them 
are  superadded  form,  motion,  position,  and  a  host  of  other 
properties  expressed  in  terms  of  these— attractions  and  repul- 
sions, hardness,  elasticity,  cohesion,  crystallization,  heat,  light, 
electricity,  chemical  properties,  organized  properties  (in  special 
kinds  of  matter) . 

But  when  physiologists  attempt  to  explain  the 
physical  basis  or  substratum,  or  cause  or  effect  of 
mental  operations — such  as  remembering — they  seem 
to  me  to  fall  into  the  very  absurdities  which  I  have 
pointed  out  above.  Even  Dr.  Bain's  theory  in  Body 
and  Mind  seems  to  me  to  imply  them.  The  physical 
rationale  of  memory,  so  far  as  I  can  understand  the 
terms  in  which  it  is  expressed,  seems  to  me  to  be 
approximately  this:  The  mental  act  of  remembering 
produces  in  the  brain  a  nerve-track,  which  becomes 
more  and  more  firm  the  oftener  it  is  used;  which 
accounts  for  the  fact  that  what  we  have  recalled  to 
mind  hundreds  of  times  before,  we  can  now  recollect 
almost  Avithout  an  effort.  To  quote  Dr.  Bain  again 
(p.  91) :  "  As  to  the  mechanism  of  retention :  for  every 
act  of  memory,  every  exercise  of  bodily  aptitude,  every 
habit,  recollection,  train  of  ideas,  there  is  a  specific 
grouping,  or  co-ordination,  of  sensations  and  move- 
ments by  virtue  of  specific  growths  in  the  cell-junc- 
tions." Now,  cells  are  real  things.  Dr.  Bain  gives 
diagrams  of  them.  The  brain  of  a  boy  eight  years  old 
cont.ains  a  certain   definite  number  of  these  cells — 


DR.  MAUDSLEy's  "  NATURAL    CAUSES,"  ETC.       359 

neither  more  nor  fewer.  If  for  the  purpose  of  mental 
"  retention  "  a  certain  number  of  them  are  arranged 
in  a  particular  order,  there  will  be  so  many  fewer  left 
for  other  purposes.  By  degrees,  as  he  learns  his 
lessons,  to  say  nothing  of  the  recollections  and  reten- 
tions of  his  ordinary  boy-life,  it  might  well  happen 
that  nearly  the  whole  substance  of  the  brain  is  devoted 
to  retention ;  in  which  case  it  would  seem  inevitable 
that  its  other  functions  must  be  left  unperformed. 
Now,  we  positively  know  that  this  does  not  happen. 
If,  then,  nerve-cells  are  required  for  mental  retention, 
and  are  not  taken  away  for  that  purpose  from  existing 
groups  of  cells  required  for  other  purposes,  they  must 
be  actually  produced  anew  in  some  way,  and  the 
number  of  cells  increased  in  proportion  to  the  amount 
of  retentiveness.  For,  by  the  very  hypothesis,  the  cells 
devoted  to  mental  "  retention "  must  remain  in  the 
track  in  which  they  have  been  arranged;  otherwise 
the  physical  substratum  of  memory  would  be  broken 
up,  recollection  would  have  no  road  on  which  to  travel, 
and  memory  would  be  physically  impossible.  In  old 
times  we  were  required  to  learn  by  heart  large  quan- 
tities of  Greek  and  Latin  poetry.  In  the  school  in 
which  I  was  myself  educated  I  was  required,  like 
others  in  my  class,  to  learn,  and  did  learn  by  heart, 
all  Horace's  Odes,  four  books  of  the  ^neid,  four 
books  of  the  Iliad,  besides  many  selections  from  Cicero's 
Orations,  and  a  good  deal  else.  In  order  to  do  this  I 
had  to  repeat  each  line  to  myself  over  and  over  again, 
thus  constructing  new  nerve-tracks,  cell-junctions,  etc. 
At  the  same  time  I  went  on  eating  and  drinking,  playing 
cricket  or  chess,  talking,  getting  into  mischief  and  the 
like ;  manifestly  I  had  not  detached,  for  the  purpose  of 


360       DR.  MAUDSLEy's  "  NATUKAL    CAUSES,"  ETC. 

retention,  any  of  the  cells  required  for  these  other  pur- 
poses. Out  of  'what,  then,  were  the  complicated  nerve- 
tracks  constructed  by  which  I  was  enabled  to  learn 
by  heart  so  much  of  Virgil  and  Homer,  and  keep  a 
large  part  of  it  in  memory  to  this  very  minute?  If 
new  cells  were  produced — as  each  of  them  must  have 
some  size  and  weight  and  chemical  composition — the 
brain  must  have  been  enormously  enlarged;  and  as 
the  nerves  of  special  sensation  (as  of  the  eye)  are  easily 
traced  by  the  anatomist,  I  do  not  see  why  he  should 
not  discover  the  nerves  devoted  to  Homer  and  Virgil. 
I  cannot  help  regarding  this  whole  theory  of  "  the 
niecJiam'sm  of  retention  "  as  pure  hypothesis,  and  a 
very  improbable  hypothesis.  Also,  a  perfectly  gratui- 
tous and  unnecessary  hypothesis ;  for  the  very  first  act 
of  memory  is  as  perfect  as  the  last ;  and  no  nerve-track 
or  system  of  cell-junctions  can  possibly  have  been  pro- 
vided for  that  first  act. 

Notwithstanding  the  length  to  which  this  note  has 
already  extended,  it  may  be  well  to  consider  one  more 
passage  in  Dr.  Maudsley's  book,  which  seems  to  me 
perhaps  the  most  remarkable  of  all  (pp.  318-319)  : 

The  individual  brain  is  virtually  the  consolidated  embodiment 
of  a  long  series  of  memories  ;  wherefore  everybody,  in  the  main 
lines  of  his  thoughts,  feelings  and  conduct,  really  recalls 
the  experiences  of  his  forefathers. 

What  a  brain  is  "virtually,"  I  do  not  know;  what  it 
is  really,  nobody  knows  better  than  Dr.  Maudsley.  He 
has  probably  dissected  hundreds  of  brains,  both  healthy 
and  diseased;  and  it  may  be  very  safely  afifirmed — until 
he  actually  denies  it — that,  in  no  single  dissection,  has 
he  ever  come  across  a  memory,  much  less  a  series  of 


DR.  MAUDSLEy's  "natural    CAUSES,"  ETC.        361 

memories,  or  a  "consolidated  embodiment  of  a  long 
series  "  of  them.  I  do  not  know  what  these  last  woids 
mean.  If  they  mean  anything  whatever— I  really 
think  they  are  absolute  jargon,  without  either  denota- 
tion or  connotation — they  seem  to  imply  that  memories 
can  be  solidified,  like  water  into  ice ;  and  that  when 
reduced  to  the  physical  condition  of  a  solid  they  become 
organized,  and  form  a  body.  This  seems  to  me  sheer 
nonsense.     But  to  proceed  : 

Consciousness  tells  him,  indeed,  that  he  is  a  self-sufficing 
individual,  with  infinite  potentialities  of  free-will ;  it  tells  him 
also  that  the  sun  goes  round  the  earth. 

Apart  from  the  direct  affirmations  in  this  passage — 
"  Consciousness  tells  him,"  etc. — there  is  the  affirmation, 
in  the  form  of  a  contemptuous  reductio  ad  aisurdum, 
that  the  deliverances  of  consciousness  are  not  trust- 
worthy, because  one  of  them — viz. :  "  The  sun  goes  round 
the  earth" — has  been  undeniably  demonstrated  to  be 
untrue.  Now,  all  these  assertions  are  not  only  false, 
but  transparently  and  ludicrously  false ;  and  the  whole 
passage  is  a  crucial  demonstration  of  the  total  inca- 
pacity of  Dr.  Maudsley — either  from  a  natural  want  of 
aptitude  that  way,  or  from  a  narrowness  of  mind 
acquired  by  the  exclusive  or  disproportionate  study  of 
physical  science — to  examine  and  discuss  even  the  very 
simplest  and  most  rudimentary  questions  in  meta- 
physics or  psychology.  And  be  it  remembered  that 
these  questions — What  is  consciousness?  What  does 
it  affirm  ?  Are  its  affirmations  authoritative  and  unde- 
niable ? — are  questions,  not  of  physics,  but  of  meta- 
physics, as  to  dealing  with  which,  Dr.  Maudsley's 
great  knowledge  and  high  authority  as  a  scientist  do 
not  raise  even  the  faintest  presumption  of  competency. 


362      DK.  MAUDSLEY's  "  NATURAL    CAUSES,"  ETC. 

They  are,  in  truth,  much  further  "  out  of  his  line  " 
than  practical  shoemaking.  Consciousness  does,  indeed, 
affirm  that  I  am  an  individual ;  that  is  to  say,  that  I 
am  myself  and  not  another;  and  I  can  know  this  only 
by  consciousness.  For  if  somebody  else  must  ^jrove  it  to 
me,  he  must  still  prove  it  to  me  j  and  before  he  can  prove 
anything  to  7ne,  he  must  know  not  only  that  /  a7n  I, 
but  that  he  is  he  ;  which  last  truth  can  be  given  to 
him  only  by  his  consciousness ;  and  so  on  ad  infinitum. 
But  neither  consciousness,  nor  any  other  faculty, 
affirms  that  I  am  "  a  self-sufficing  individual."  Again, 
consciousness  assured  me  that  I  got  out  of  bed  this 
morning  of  my  own  accord,  without  any  external  com- 
pulsion or  even  solicitation  ;  in  other  words,  that  I  had 
and  exercised  a  power  of  self-determination  or  "  free- 
will." But  it  told  me  nothing  of  the  "  potentialities  " 
of  free-will ;  that  is  to  say,  its  power  of  doing  this  or 
that  at  any  indefinite  time,  or  in  any  conceivable 
circumstances.  Much  less  did  it  affirm  that  these 
potentialities  were  "  infinite."  Again,  the  words  sun 
and  earth  have  a  definite  connotation  determined  by 
astronomers.  The  sun  is  not  a  blaze  of  light,  nor  the 
earth  a  flat  surface  like  a  huge  plate,  bounded  by  a 
circular  horizon.  Consciousness  does  not  affirm  even 
the  existence  of  a  "sun,"  or  an  "earth,"  nor  that 
"the  sun  goes  round  the  earth,"  nor  that  either  of  the 
two  could  by  any  possibility  get  "round"  the  other. 
Is  Dr.  Maudsley  simply  "fooling"  us? — having  so 
mean  an  opinion  of  the  intellectual  abilities  of  Chris- 
tians as  to  suppose  that  by  telling  us  about  witches, 
and  ghost  stories,  and  mad  people  who  think  them- 
selves princes,  and  Mohammed's  "epilepsy,"  he  can 
eradicate  out  of  our   hearts  and  minds,  to  the   last 


DK.  MAUDSLEy's    "  NATURAL  CAUSES,"  ETC.       363 

smallest  fibre,  our  religious  feelings  and  beliefs?  Does 
he  scornfully  deem  it  beneath  him,  in  dealing  with 
such  abysmal  fools,  to  keep  up  even  an  appearance  of 
accuracy  ?  Or  does  he  really  not  Tcnoio  the  meaning  of 
the  very  word  consciousness  as  it  is  employed  in 
psycJiology,  or  even  in  the  conversation  of  careful 
speakers  ?  "  Consciousness,"  says  Sir  W.  Hamilton, 
"is  the  recognition  of  the  mind  or  ego  of  its  own  acts 
(Jl'  affections  ;  and  in  this  "  (Mr.  J.  S.  Mill  says  "  he 
observes  truly  ")  "all  philosophers  are  agreed."  Again, 
he  says :  "  Consciousness  and  immediate  hioivledge  are 
terms  universally  convertible."  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill  says : 
"Immediate  knowledge,  again,  he  [Sir  W.  Hamilton] 
treats  as  universally  convertible  with  intuitive  knowl- 
edge ;  and  the  terms  are  really  convertible."  On 
this  whole  subject  Chapters  VIII.  and  IX.  of  J.  S. 
Mill's  Examination  of  Sir  William  Hamiltoiv's  Phi- 
losophy are  perfect  models  both  of  exposition  and  of 
philosophical  criticism;  whether  we  accept  all  Mr. 
Mill's  conclusions  or  not.  To  pass  from  Dr.  Maudsley 
to  Mr.  Mill  is  like  passing  out  of  a  dense  London  fog 
to  the  perfectly  transparent  clearness  of  a  bright,  frosty 
morning.  Sir  W.  Hamilton,  indeed,  believes  that  we 
know  by  consciousness  not  only  our  sensations,  but  the 
external  object  to  which  we  refer  them ;  for  instance, 
not  only  the  sensation  of  dazzling  light,  but  the  bril- 
liant object — so  far  as  being  a  brilliant  object — which 
(we  believe)  causes  those  sensations.  This  may  be,  and 
is,  doubted  or  denied.  But  to  know  by  consciousness 
the  existence,  at  the  moment  of  consciousness,  of  a 
brilliant  object,  is  altogether  different  from  knowing 
by  consciousness  that  it  "moves  round  the  earth,"  or 
even  that  if  moves  at  all.     I  have  no  space  for  a  detailed 


364        DR.  MAUDSLEy's  "  NATURAL   CAUSES,"  ETC. 

analysis  of  the  mental  process  by  which  we  arrive  at 
the  belief,  true  or  false,  that  the  sun  goes  round  the 
earth.  But  even  to  believe  that  the  sun  we  see  in  the 
west  in  the  evening  is  the  same  sun  which  we  saw  in 
the  morning,  involves  not  only  at  least  two  distinct 
^ioiQ^oi  consciousness,  but  many  acts  of  memory/,  together 
with  those  quite  innumerable  processes  by  which  we, 
so  to  speak,  localize  the  sun  at  any  given  time,  so  as  to 
be  able  to  distinguish  east  from  ivest,  and  also  the  space 
intervening  between  them.  If  this  be  merely  conscious- 
ness, there  is  no  knowledge  which  we  obtain  in  any 
otlier  way,  and  logical  inferences  are  superfluous  and 
impossible. 

Dr.  Maudsley's  further  affirmation  that  conscious- 
ness asserts  what  is  not  true,  may  be  disposed  of  in  the 
words  of  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill  {Examination,  etc.,  Chapter 
IX.,  at  the  beginning,  pp.  159-160,  Holt's  American 
Edition)  :  "According  to  all  philosophers,  the  evidence 
of  consciousness,  if  only  we  can  obtain  it  pure,  is  con- 
clusive. This  is  an  obvious,  but  by  no  means  an  iden- 
tical, proposition.  If  consciousness  be  defined  as  intui- 
tive knowledge,  it  is  indeed  an  identical  proposition 
to  say  that  if  we  intuitively  know  anything,  we  do 
know  it  and  are  sure  of  it.  But  the  meaning  lies  in 
the  implied  assertion  that  we  do  know  some  things 
immediately  or  intuitively.  That  we  must  do  so  is 
evident,  if  we  know  anything;  for  what  we  know 
mediately  depends  for  its  evidence  on  our  previous 
knowledge  of  something  else;  unless,  therefore,  we 
know  something  immediately,  we  could  not  know  any- 
thing mediately,  and  consequently  could  not  know 
anything  at  all The  verdict,  then,  of  conscious- 
ness, or,  in  other  words,  our  immediate  and  intuitive 


DR.  MAUDSLEy's  ''  NATURAL    CAUSES,"  ETC.        365 

conviction,  is  admitted,  on  all  hands,  to  be  a  decision 
without  appeal." 

The  whole  question  of  free-will,  for  instance,  is  at 
bottom  a  question  of  luhat  consciousness  affirms  in  the 
matter ;  the  clear  evidence  of  consciousness,  when 
obtained,  being  admitted,  on  both  sides,  to  be  entirely 
conclusive. 


